
(fess. 
Book. 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



I 




Copyright, 1912, by Edmonston. 

THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 



Opposite half-title 



CHAMP CLARK 



By 

W. L. WEBB 
n 




NEW YORK 

THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY 
1912 



[ 



i 



Copyright, 1912, by 
The Neale Publishing Company 







.> '' ■■'» ■♦:> 






Champ Clark 



DEDICATED 

TO 

THE YOUNG MEN OF AMERICA 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I. Ancestry 11 

11. Childhood 22 

TIL The Plowboy School-teacher 29 

IV. University and College 38 

V. Seeking a Location 44 

VI. Ten Eventful Years in Pike 49 

VII. Member of the Thirty-fifth General 

Assembly 58 

VIII. The Contests of Clark and Norton 

FOR Congress 73 

IX. His Tammany Hall Speech 77 

X. Clark's Interregnum 83 

XI. Champ Clark in the Fifty-fifth Con- 
gress 90 

XII. Clark, the Epoch-Maker 93 

XIII. His Friendships 107 

XIV. Mrs. Clark 124 

XV. "Square to the Four Winds that 

Blow" 132 

XVT. Sparks from Clark's Anvil 138 

XVII. Reminiscent 145 

XVIII. Various Opinions 158 

XIX. Excerpts from Clark's Speeches and 

Lectures 176 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

The Speaker of the House of Representatives 

Facing half-title 

Champ Clark Frontispiece 

Facing page 

Bennett Champ Clark 37 

Mrs. Genevieve Bennett Clark 124 

Honey Shuck (Mr. Clark's Home in Bowling 

Green, Pike County, Missouri) 150 

Miss Genevieve Clark 154 



INTRODUCTION 

Champ Clark has been my friend for twenty-five years. 
In 1889 we were associates in the Thirty-ninth General 
Assembly of Missouri. He was connected with the Lower, 
I with the Upper branch of the Legislature. Since that 
time our lives have often touched. 

Champ Clark is a typical Missourian, an ideal American. 
He possesses high character, distinctive ability, unusual 
courage and statesmanship. 

Champ Clark is a progressive but not a demagogue. 
He is a safe and sane statesman. He is a progressive 
Avithout being a radical, a conservative without being a 
moss-back. He is an Abe Lincoln sort of a man in the 
constructive forces that make for greatness — honesty, 
originality, brains, and backbone. Lincoln and Clark were 
bom in Kentucky, early in life they turned their faces 
westward, Lincoln toward Illinois, Clark toward Missouri. 
Lincoln and Clark were both endowed with brawny bodies, 
determinant wills, keen senses of humor, story telling 
gifts, and aspirations to achieve along lines of public 
service. 

Champ Clark is absolutely fair. While his birth, pre- 
dilection, and training have been with and for the common 
people, yet his keen sense of justice and his RECORD 
demonstrate that he would not do a wrong to any legiti- 
mate industry, however large or small. 

Champ Clark is a peacemaker and unifier of his party. 



He Is a diplomat, and a bom leader of men. His long 
consistent public career, his achieving experience and ef- 
ficient leadership qualify him for the Presidency. 

Following his success in the Speakership, to assume the 
duties of the Presidency would be as natural as stepping 
from one room to another. 

William McKinley owed much of his success in the 
White House to his sixteen years in Congress, to the 
knowledge gained and the friendships formed there. 
When he recommended legislation to Congress, he was 
suggesting it to his old friends and associates. Speaker 
Clark has served eighteen years in the House, and has 
reached the highest place in a body where every man 
sooner or later gravitates inevitably into the place for 
which he is fitted by nature and training. 

I believe in Champ Clark. 




Kansas City, Mo., May 27, 1912. 



Champ Clark 



CHAPTER I 

Ancestry 

Adrial Clark, the grandfather of Champ Clark, lived 
at Egg Harbor, N. J. He was a man of great wealth, 
and was the owner of many seagoing vessels. He lost his 
first wife and afterward married a popular Quaker maid. 
Miss Elizabeth Archer. A son of the first maniage was 
the captain of one of the Clark vessels that went down at 
sea, and he perished with his ship. The name of this 
captain was given to the youngest child of the second 
marriage, the thirteenth of the Clark children, John Hamp- 
ton Clark, the father of Champ Clark. 

Adrial Clark died. His ships were all lost, and the re- 
mainder of the fortune, being invested in factories that 
manufactured glass, was dissipated by the surviving part- 
ner. The Quaker mother was reduced from opulence to 
poverty. Unable to educate her children or to provide 
for them, she bound out her youngest child, John Hamp- 
ton Clark, as an apprentice to a carriage and wagon- 
maker. 

The boy went to the task as to a penance. Nature 
had endowed him with talents and an aspiring mind. He 

11 



12 CHAMP CLARK 

longed for an education and for intellectual employment; 
but with grim loyalty, reflected to this day in his distin- 
guished son, he continued with the wagon-maker until he 
was twenty-one years old. Then, without a word of fare- 
well to his mother or other relatives, he left his native 
place, never to return. He had heard of the free and mighty 
West; many of the carriages and wagons made by him 
had doubtless gone in that direction. He followed their 
tracks and went to Kentucky. But what could he do 
there? His education was but rudimentary. He could 
make wagons and carriages, and of necessity he turned 
to his trade. 

This robust wagon-maker, with the heart of a Roman 
in him, inhented from his father some of the untamed 
nature of the Vikings or of the Norse sea-kings, and from 
his gentle Quaker mother sweetness of temper and musical 
talent. He became a singing-master. In a frontier region 
where the fiddle was the only instrument of music, the 
singing-master was justly esteemed a man of accomplish- 
ments ; and he was always a leader in the rude society of 
the countryside. 

John Hampton Clark also took up the practice of 
dentistry, and this, with his singing-schools, led him 
from place to place, and brought him in contact with 
people. He was a good conversationalist — and contro- 
versialist ; he delighted in discussions of politics and re- 
ligion. He traveled on horseback over four or five counties 
carrying a huge pair of saddle-bags, one end of wliich 



ANCESTRY 13 

was filled with dental instruments, the other with the Bible 
and with the speeches of Stephen A. Douglas, John C. 
Breckinridge, and other great Democrats of the times. His 
convictions concerning politics and religion were strong, 
and his prejudices were equally so. He was a thorough 
Democrat in his political faith; Thomas Jefferson and 
Andrew Jackson were his poHtical idols. 

Champ Clark describes his father as "handsome, higlily 
intellectual, uneducated in a technical sense, though ex- 
traordinarily well informed, not a public speaker, but skil- 
ful at arguing in private conversation and in telling an 
anecdote, an enthusiastic amateur Democratic politician 
with no desire to hold office, with a twenty-four-inch head, 
most of it in front of his ears, absolutely honest, without 
ambition for money and accumulating none, seemingly 
intended by nature for one of the learned professions, with 
a consuming desire to have his children well educated." 

He stood six feet, in his prime weighed one hundred and 
sixty-five pounds, and lived to be nearly ninety. His hair 
was dark brown in midlife, and inclined to be curly. His 
oddly colored eyes were full of fire ; one was blue, the other 
brown. 

Drawing his homely but forceful illustrations from 
daily life, when he lectured on the village corner people 
stood patiently to hear him to the end, no matter how 
long it took. The farmer came from his furrow, the black- 
smith left his anvil, the wife her kitchen, and loungers the 
tavern, to listen, open-mouthed, to this strange man — < 



14. CHAMP CLARK 

often to mock him and to dispute with him and to be in- 
tensely delighted when he fought back like a catamount. 
His tongue was as sharp as a briar. He delighted to 
sting the scoffers with his rude sarcasm, and to call down 
upon their heads the wrath of God for their doubts and 
gibes. 

His energetic teaching, his profound interest in young 
folks, his unwearying patience in imparting useful 
knowledge, and his shrewd worldly sagacity — these quali- 
ties gave to John Hampton Clark the power to measure 
and to master men. And his good work lives after him. 
Thus he passed through the Kentucky backwoods country 
singing psalms, organizing children's classes in Bible 
study, and now and then practicing dentistry. Little 
Champ, who went along, grew up in this atmosphere of 
argumentative turbulence, and by hundreds of examples 
learned readiness in debate, the proper cutting word, the 
biting retort. Li the years to come Champ, like his 
father, in turn was to "sharpen his knife on a brickbat" 
and dispute for what he held to be the truth. 

From "Hours With Famous Americans" is the follow- 
ing accurate and eloquent dissertation : 

"If one wishes thoroughly to understand Champ Clark, 
attention must be paid to the outworkings of heredity and 
environment. Champ Clark is as kind to friends as he is 
relentless to political foes, and in this he is ti-ue to his 
race. The Clarks are all born fighters for what they be- 
lieve to be true. John Hampton Clark upheld the Bible 



ANCESTRY 15 

against all scoffers, and could expound it with the faith 
of one of the twelve Apostles. . . . It is doubtful 
if at any one time in all his life he was worth five hundred 
dollars. But in his little circle he was beloved, and was long 
remembered for his many kindly services. . . . He 
was a sort of modern Socrates, who lived solely to counsel 
men and to indulge a life's grand passion to impart knowl- 
edge. His son is also much the same, to this hour, though 
in another day and generation, and with completely 
changed surroundings. 

"While the elder Clark, as far as pecuniary reward goes, 
talked for nothing except to gratify his heart's desire, 
let me point a finger at the unfolding of destiny. The 
former little boy, who went along and heard the battles 
for the Bible, now spends his own summers, when Congress 
is not in session, lecturing under Chautauqua management 
at a thousand dollars a week — more than the father saw 
in the whole eighty-seven years of his life. 

"Years later, when Champ Clark had become famous 
and his speeches were in all the newspapers, the old gen- 
tleman read secretly every word, and, although fairly 
bursting with pride, never spoke a word of praise to his 
son. 

"When Champ Clark became a father and was obliged 
to formulate rules of his own, he grew foolishly fond, 
excusing everything that his children did and making un- 
usual concessions to them. And when his small son died 
this tender, starved love of the earlier time blossomed into 



16 CHAIVIP CLARK 

full flower; and Champ Clark did something never known 
before nor since in national public life ; he wrote a fleeting 
line to 'Little Champ' in the formal, prosy, dull 'Red 
Book' of Congi'ess. It was the strong man's own idea. 
Those that were with him at that time say that he did not 
shed a tear, and for days they observed him go about as in 
a dream, with no show of conventional grief, although they 
knew that his heart was broken. 

"And if from this simple incident you do not under- 
stand at least one phase of big Champ Clark, you will 
never know him from anything that I shall be able to 
tell you." 

Aletha Jane Beauchamp was the maiden name of 
Champ Clark's mother. Her father, James T. Beau- 
champ, was a lawyer and rose to prominence in his pro- 
fession. . He married Miss Elizabeth Jett, renowned for 
her beauty and accomplishments, a member of one of Ken- 
tucky's most honored families. They both died young, 
leaving three children, who lived with their grandmother, 
Mrs. Jett. 

"Aletha was sixteen years old when she went to live 
with her grandmother. She v/as beautiful, well educated, 
and a musician of more than ordinary ability. She became 
a Christian early in her teens, and was ever true and' 
devoted — the sunshine of her adopted home. How those 
old people loved her! Many were made young again by 
her warm and loving heart. 

"In Louisville tliere lived a wealthy relative of hers. 



ANCESTRY 17 

Mrs. Miller, the wife of the celebrated Dr. Miller, author 
of medical works, who offered to educate her in any col- 
lege of her choice, and to introduce her into society, but 
she declined in these words : 'My grandmother has been 
kind to me ; she needs me now, and I cannot go.' 

"The neighbors marveled at the noble traits evinced in 
this young girl, whose early life might have been one con- 
tinual round of pleasure. She won all hearts ; she softened 
the hardest and infused light and warmth into the coldest. 
She did not care for wealth ; she could have married rich 
and good men, but she said: 'We want but little here 
below, nor want that little long,' in the words of a familiar 
quotation, which she constantly used. It seemed that the 
Spirit of God was whispering to her that her days were 
numbered." 

The following incidents are told in Champ Clark's biog- 
raphy in "Five Famous Missourians" : 

"Before she was twenty Aletha Jane Beauchamp met 
the handsome John Hampton Clark, and they were mar- 
ried. Their children were Elizabeth, Margaret, and 
Champ. The mother died at the age of twenty-seven, 
when her Kttle boy was less than four years old. She was 
a devoted mother, and she loved her children with all the 
devotion of her ardent and loyal nature. As she lay upon 
her death-bed she drew her only son to her side again 
and again and said, *I want this little head filled with 
wisdom.' 

"The devotion of little Champ to his mother was won- 



18 CHAMP CLARK 

derful even for one of his precocit}'. Although not four 
years old, he refused to leave her bedside. And when com- 
pelled to do so, he wept so bitterly that the attendants 
were forced to take him to her. Just after the burial and 
while relatives were leaving the cemetery, a shower of rain 
came up. Little Champ eluded his relatives and ran back 
and sat upon the grave, saying, 'I will not leave my 
mamma in the rain.' Force was necessary to get the little 
fellow to the house. The nervous excitement and grief 
over the loss of his mother brought on brain-fever, and 
the child hovered between life and death for weeks. But 
the kindly ministrations of his grandmother and of his 
aunt, Margaret Beauchamp, restored him to health. His 
attachment, formed at this time for these two kinswomen, 
was never effaced. The father at last deemed it best to 
take the children away from the old scenes of son'ow." 

Champ Clark's birthplace was sixty miles south of 
Louisville. It was an humble fann cottage, among the 
cliffs along the Kentucky River. The cottage was a small 
affair, with low ceilings, and was constinicted of rough 
clapboards — a characteristic pioneer home of the period. 
There were three rooms, the bedroom, the living-room, 
and the kitchen, the latter being also the dining-room. At 
the time of Champ Clark's birth there were no railroads 
in this part of the country, and tlie farmers rode on horse- 
back to the nearest grocery for supplies and for their 
mail. 

His mother, who had been educated in a convent, lived 



ANCESTRY 19 

only seven years after her marriage. The oldest child, 
Margaret Louise, died in infancy. At the time of his 
wife's death, John Hampton Clark was in ill health, and 
how to bring up the two children — James Beauchamp and 
Elizabeth — was a problem. He found an elderly and 
childless couple in an adjoining county, who, under his 
supervision, undertook the care of Champ and his sister. 
The children lived with them until Champ was eleven years 
old, when they both went to live with John Call. 

Champ Clark's mother named him James Beauchamp. 
This was the name of a famous French historian, who 
flourished at the beginning of the last century, and who in 
the troublesome times of Napoleon was often in prison 
for a too free use of his pen. The Beauchamps were 
transplanted from France to the wilds of America, and 
were among the earlier settlers of Kentucky. They were 
refined people and were very popular. 

Everybody pronounced the name "Bowchamp," whereas 
the immemorial pronunciation in England is "Beecham." 
This offensive mispronunciation led Mr. Clark to a recon- 
struction of his name. He dropped the first name entirely 
and the first half of the middle name, retaining the single 
last syllable Champ, and since then he has been Champ 
Clark and nothing else. "If thy right hand offend thee, 
cut it off." Mr. Clark hterally applied this injunction of 
Scripture to the treatment of his name. 

Harvey Middleton, in the Columbian Magazine, gives 



30 CHAMP CLARK 

this interesting account of the origin of the now famous 
name "Champ": 

"There is nothing ordinary about him except his last 
name, but he did not have the making of that; if he had, 
it would smack of the remarkable individuality of the man. 
The first name, Champ, was made of unpromising mate- 
rial. When he was in his salad days and was receiving 
scented notes daintily addressed to Mr. James B. Clark, 
another James B. Clark, who had forgotten that he him- 
self was ever in love, used to get the letters by mistake, 
open them, see that they were intended for another, and 
throw them away. This annoyed Clark, so he proceeded 
to trim his name to his liking. His mother was a Ken- 
tucky Beauchamp, from the English pioneers of Virginia 
and Kentucky. She had named her first-born James 
Beauchamp Clark, for his grandfather, who was a member 
of the Kentucky Legislature. He, with reverent but un- 
sparing hand, sliced the name in two and took the latter 
half; the rest went into the discard." 

"It is probable that the career of no man of this gen- 
eration is more typically American than that of the pres- 
ent Speaker of the House. He unites within himself the 
strength and virtues of the stem, unbending Puritans and 
of the brilliant Cavaliers. His father was born in New 
Jersey and his paternal grandfather in Connecticut. On 
his mother's side all his ancestors, the Beauchamps, the 
Robertsons, the Jetts, were Virginians and Kentuckians. 



ANCESTRY «1 

His grandfather Beauchamp was a member of the Ken- 
tucky Legislature, and his second cousin, George Rob- 
ertson, was a Representative in Congress, and is ranked 
among the greatest Chief Justices of Kentucky." — C. H. 
Tavenner. 

Analyzing the ancestry of Champ Clark and noting 
with special thoughtfulness the characteristics of his 
father and mother, we can hardly marvel at the prominence 
of their son. He is the logical result of antecedent forces. 
We see pronounced In Mr. Clark the traits of his father 
rather than those of his mother, and this may be attrib- 
uted to the early training received from his father. He 
inherits from his mother a loyal nature, an affectionate 
heart, and a tenacity of purpose ; from his father, oratory, 
a taste for literature, and political Instincts which have 
developed into statesmanship. From both he Inherits rev- 
erence for religion and a love of learning. To these nat- 
ural gifts and endowments Mr. Clark has brought a zest 
for hard work and an unflagging desire for self-improve- 
ment. 



CHAPTER U 
Childhood 

The elder Clark's life had been cruelly hampered by 
an insufficient education, a misfortune largely overcome 
by self-improvement, and that, too, without the offensive 
egotism often displayed by self-made men. He instilled 
into the mind of his young son the necessity for a thor- 
ough education. It is not of record that he ever attempted 
to implant in the boy's mind the love of money or the 
desire for a money-making career; his own aspirations 
from childhood had been in the direction of scholarly pur- 
suits, and now he would live his life over again in his son. 
Never did good seed fall into better soil; the har^'est has 
been an hundredfold. 

John Hampton Clark believed that man has a soul 
and a hereafter, and that his spirituality, not less than 
his intellectuality, requires nurture. He loved the Bible 
and he taught its sublime truths to his little son; and the 
son profited by the father's teachings. Champ Clark is 
the most competent and thorough Bible student in public 
life to-day. His speeches, orations, and lectures are 
replete with accurate and apropos Bible quotations. Mr. 
Clark recounts the manner in which he was led to study 
the Bible in the following vivid paragraphs : 

"When I was a boy my father wished me to study the 

22 



CHILDHOOD 23 

Bible, and I would not do so very much. So he ran across 
a small book, a sort of vest-pocket volume, containing the 
Declaration of Independence, the old Articles of Confed- 
eration, the Constitution of the United States, and Wash- 
ington's Farewell Address, which he gave me with these 
words : 'My son, as you will not read your Bible, here is 
the next best book ; study it.' 

"I followed his advice. 'You can lead a horse to the 
trough, but you can't make him drink.' So while my 
father made me go to church, he could not force me to 
study theology. We attended worship at a log meeting- 
house called 'Glen's Creek,' in Washington County, Ken- 
tucky. Near the center was a huge square post to hold 
up the roof. When the sermon did not interest me I would 
curl myself up behind that post, get out my 'political 
Bible,' and go to work on it. I kept that up until I kneAV 
by heart the Declaration of Independence, the old Articles 
of Confederation, the Constitution, and Washington's 
Farewell Address — not an unhealthy mental exercise by 
any manner of means. 

"I am not certain that I would have ever studied the 
Bible except for an accident. My father was bitterly 
opposed to my reading novels. He kept me from it as 
long as he could control me. That I made up for lost 
time in that regard goes without saying. He was always 
buying and borrowing histories and biographies for me 
to read — and thus formed in me a habit that abides to 
this day. 



24 CHAMP CLARK 

"Once, however, he came across the most fascinating 
romance ever written. It was published in the guise 
of a biography, and was William Wirt's 'Life of Patrick 
Henrj.' Neither good Sir Walter Scott nor Rider 
Haggard ever drew on his imagination more than did 
William Wirt in the preparation of that book. Father 
brought it home and I read it, as old man Harper of 
Kentucky ran his horses, 'from eend to eend.' It con- 
tained Patrick's great lyric speech before the Virginia 
House of Burgesses, precipitating the Revolution, which 
still stirs the heart like strains of martial music. Of 
course, it completely fascinated me. But the sentence 
that took most thorough possession of my mind was this, 
'The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the 
strong.' I pondered that paradox wonderingly in my 
heart. 

"I told my father what a great speech it was, and 
what a magnificent sentence that was. He took m}'^ 
breath away by saying: 'My son. King Solomon, and not 
Patrick Henry, wrote that sentence that you admire so 
much. Read your Bible as eagerly as you do your his- 
tories and biographies, and you will find hundreds of 
others fully as magnificent.' I was much surprised, but 
I took him at his word, and have been reading the Bible 
ever since, with constantly increasing profit and delight. 
To say nothing of its religious value, it is the best 
book in the world to quote from. Whatever knowledge 
I have of it dates from the day that my father placed 



CHILDHOOD «6 

William Wirt's 'Life of Patrick Henry' in my hands." 
When Champ Clark was a child he was remarkable for 
a large head poised on a small neck. His father feared 
that he had a weak constitution — a weakness which the 
father proposed to overcome by prompt attention and 
treatment, just as he proposed to meet and subdue every 
form of weakness that might develop in the boy as he 
grew to manhood. Champ was promptly set to work 
practicing the art of chinning poles, exercising with hand- 
swings, and other athletic pastimes and sports, for the 
purpose of developing the neck and chest. When a little 
older he was sent to the farm owned by Clark Montgom- 
ery — a poor, hilly, rock-encumbered farm — where he grew 
to manhood, almost to gianthood. That boy of thin neck 
and narrow chest now wears a collar of eighteen inches 
and a coat of forty-four inches chest measurement. 
Champ Clark once lifted a weight of a thousand pounds; 
this feat caused the blood to ooze from beneath his finger- 
nails. 

The first farm work performed by the boy Champ was 
thinning corn. But the yield of limestone rock exceeded 
the yield of corn, according to Mr. Clark's recollection 
of the crop. As he grew into lusty youth Farmer Mont- 
gomery set him to building a rock fence around the farm. 
He was required to break up the material in the quarry 
on the hillside with a sledge-hammer, and then to carry 
it forward and place it in position. The stone wall around 
the Montgomery farm still stands and will endure for 



26 CHAMP CLARK 

centuries, a monument to Champ's physical prowess. As 
Lincoln was called the "Rail-Splitter," so Champ Clark 
would doubtless be known as "Stonewall" Clark but for 
the fact that the sobriquet has been most appropriately 
bestowed upon another. Speaking of that stone fence, 
John H. Greusel says, in "Hours With Famous 
Americans": "It has solid character, like Champ Clark's 
own life ; that stone fence has individuality, the Champ 
Clark individuality. It might well be made the symbol 
of his own career — honest and 'square to the four winds 
that blow.' " 

Champ Clark learned the superlative quality of industry 
on that farai. The habit then acquired of close applica- 
tion and hard work has attended him through every task 
of his life. He was a courageous boy, headstrong and 
wilful. He was honest and trustworthy, but the unusual 
forces displayed in him were misunderstood by the good 
old dames of the neighborhood, who predicted that he 
would "turn out bad." The father had no such fear, but 
watched over him with unremitting care, keeping him in 
school as much as possible. He only feared that his boy 
would be spoiled by M'hat he called "too much affection 
and family clannishness on my wife's side, and altogether 
too much intellectual pride — about nothing. It's not that 
way with the Clark side of the family. Oh, no! We 
know and fear God, and scorn the hypocrites of this 
earth." The old gentleman ever held that the time way 
to deal with children is to suppress what is called "natural 



CHILDHOOD n 

emotion" and to avoid pampering, and to give them a 
thrashing now and then for the good of the everlasting 
soul. 

The father was a strict disciplinarian and kept a care- 
ful surveillance over the conduct of his son, who was hard 
to manage. On one occasion Champ ran away from 
school to attend a preliminary hearing in a justice court 
at Mackville, Kentucky. The young runaway knew that 
he was taking a bold step; he knew what would be the 
consequences should his father find it out. But there was 
the promise of too much excitement for the boy to miss 
it. He had never seen a trial. He wanted to hear the 
lawyers plead. So when the case was called he was there, 
intent upon seeing and hearing everything that was said 
and done. During the progress of the trial he felt that 
some one was gazing at him ; he looked across the room and 
there he saw his father. That meant a chastisement, which 
was duly administered that night. 

But young Clark never regretted what he did that day, 
notwithstanding the punishment, which was accepted as 
a matter of course. Perhaps Champ Clark was moved 
by the premonitions of unconscious genius for public 
speaking when he ran away from school to hear Proctor 
Knott address that justice of the peace. The case was 
educational to him. This preliminary trial in the justice's 
court was momentous for Champ. It determined his career. 
He would be a lawyer. 

The interview between father and son, after they re- 



88 CHAMP CLARK 

turned that day from the trial, was not the first encounter 
of the kind — and probably not the last. The treatment 
of the father was enough to drive the lad from home; but 
Champ submitted doggedly — and stayed. He was never a 
coward and his self-assertion was prominent, even when he 
was being corrected and subdued by his father. 



CHAPTER ni 

The Plowboy School-teacher, 

There was no period in Champ Clark's Hfe that can be 
set apart as his period of youth — that formative, poetic, 
and delightful period, inten-ening, in most lives, between 
childhood and manhood. He passed at one step from 
boy's estate to man's. Having determined on the pur- 
suit of the law, he directed his energies to the acquirement 
of the means for securing, as a first requisite, the educa- 
tion which his father had always insisted that he should 
have, and for which he himself longed. When between 
fourteen and fifteen years old he began his long career 
as a school-teacher. 

This boy, fresh from the plow, had become a man 
with a man's dynamic force. Teaching school at that 
time in Kentucky was akin to the service of a 
soldier ; it was a sort of military exercise ; it required 
the skill and courage of a captain. Champ Clark as a 
youth was as skilful and courageous as a military com- 
mander. He began teaching at a time and amid sur- 
roundings that Fate seems to have designed for the pur- 
pose of evoking every element of strength in his character. 
The Civil War, then coming to a close, had not softened 

the manners of the people — rather had it promoted feuds 

29 



30 CHAMP CLARK 

and embroilments. Society was turbulent; Insubordina- 
tion reigned. 

This boy school-teacher was unafraid. He taught his 
first school with signal success, and thereby made such a 
reputation for ability to control unruly pupils that he 
was besought to come and assume charge of schools where 
older teachers had failed. 

^^ Another phase of his character is brought out in the 
following anecdote, related by Harvey Middleton In the 
Columbian Magazine : 

"When Clark was a small tyke, knocked about from 
pillar to post, getting up before day to feed the stock on 
this poor hill farm or that, going to bed both hungry and 
motherless, there came Into his life a good woman v/ho was 
kind to him — ^the first Idndness he had known since the 
day they had burled his mother. That woman was Mrs. 
Young. She is very old now and far spent, and half a 
century has passed, but little packages and checks still go 
from the Capitol Building at Washington, and latterly 
from the beautiful rooms of the Speaker, where the rich 
carpets, hangings and mahogany, chandeliers and mirrors 
are Avorth a goodly fortune, to a lowly little cabin down 
in Kentucky. And when the withered old hands are folded 
for their churchyard rest there will be mourning In some 
high place by a man who doesn't know how to forget. 

"Wait a moment — while he doesn't forget, yet he for- 
gives. It had almost slipped my mind — the man's name 
has escaped me, and it is better to forget it, but there 



THE PLOWBOY SCHOOL-TEACHER 31 

was a farmer with whom Clark worked as a child who used 
to beat him, leaving welts and bruises and misery. 

"Clark hated him with all the strength of his soul, and 
time and again in the attic at night he would lie awake, 
nursing his sore flesh and vowing that if he ever grew 
big enough he would come back and chastise the brute. 
Ten 3'ears passed. One day a tall, muscular young man 
came around the bend in the road on foot. He sprang 
over the stile, strode up the path, and knocked at the door. 
Entering, he stood before his ancient enemy — towered 
above him hke Saul among his brethren. He looked 
down at him and the form withered and shrunk away 
from his gaze of scorn, but as he looked his anger 
faded and pity came in its place ; the man's wife was dead, 
his children were dead, and he was ill and alone. He had 
found retribution indeed. Instead of thrashing him, Clark 
handed him some money to help him along. That was, 
and is. Champ Clark." 

Noble impulses have ever dominated Clark's character 
and actions, and a lofty career, dimly outlined, ever 
loomed in his boyish mind. The story of Andrew Jackson 
fascinated him. Perhaps his thoughts of the presidency — 
thoughts common to all ambitious American boys — were 
thrust aside as preposterous. His earliest aspirations he 
knew could be realized; he could get an education and he 
moved straight to this ambition. There was never the 
slightest danger that Champ Clark would become a "bad 
man" ; bad men were plentiful enough in his neighborhood 



32 CHAMP CLARK 

to set examples for him; but his character was too well- 
balanced and he was too level-headed and too big-hearted 
for such a career. 

Like a blacksmith beating on his anvil, Clark pounded 
away at the task that he had assig-ned himself. He must 
go to college ; he must procure the money to pay his 
expenses. He accepted honest employment of any kind; 
he was never idle. Between terms of school he labored 
as a farmhand, when nothing better offered. He devoted 
all the fragments of his time dihgently to his books. 

During one summer he accepted a position as a clerk in 
a country store. Of his experiences in this employment 
one was unfortunate for him, inasmuch as it made a serious 
inroad upon his accumulations for college. The pro- 
prietor of the store found it necessary to be absent one 
day from his business ; this was not especially deplorable, 
as he could depend implicitly upon his clerk. He enjoined 
Clark to take special care of all money received, as a large 
sum was expected to come in that day. At closing time 
Clark took the money from the drawer and hid it where 
the mice cut the bills to shreds. The clerk was responsible 
for the money and he had to replace it. The loss was 
about one hundred dollars — a large sum for the ambitious 
young school-teacher, looking forward to college. In 
order to begin earning tliis sum at once, he returned un- 
complainingly to farm work. * 

Undoubtedly he would have succeeded as a merchant, 
after developing what the phrenologists would term 



THE PLOWBOY SCHOOL-TEACHER 33 

his acquisitive faculty, but his services in a country 
store were not prompted by ambition for a mer- 
cantile or business career. He had no such desire. 
Neither did his service as a farmhand indicate a desire to 
be a farmer. He was the best farmhand, as well as the 
best school-teacher, in Anderson County. He could bind 
more wheat in a day, or cut down more grain with the 
cradle, than any other man in the field. The last farm work 
that he ever performed was for a neighboring farmer 
named Best, who paid him twelve dollars for binding wheat 
six days. His aptitude for work in the schoolroom put 
an end to his career on the farm. He was both an in- 
structor and a disciplinarian. In his first school there 
were boys larger and older than he — schoolmates of his 
the year before. These continued to be boys, and they 
were sui'prised to find themselves controlled, directed, and 
taught by their erstwhile playmate; but he forced them 
to respect him and to obey him. 

School-teacher Clark is described by one writer as "a 
tall, lank, awkward, green, gawky boy," with goods and 
chattels limited to one hundred and fifty dollars in cash 
and a gold watch worth seventy-five dollars — an extrava- 
gant price for the watch, said the natives, even if he did 
earn the money himself. But the boy, whether awkward, 
as writers like to say of their heroes, or whether a Chester- 
field in manners, made*friends. His frank, earnest manner 
attracted men and inspired confidence. While he was 
teaching the High School at Camden, Anderson County, 



34 CHAMP CLARK 

Kentucky, he became active and prominent in the Christian 
Church. 

He was the superintendent of the Sunday-school, 
and it was the most successful one that the church had 
ever had. He introduced new departures. He organized the 
Sunday-school into a body of coherent and enthusiastic 
workers. Teachers and pupils found a new zeal, and the at- 
tendance became large. Mr. Clark systematized the study of 
the Bible for his classes and taught the uses of concordances 
and other Biblical works. He introduced the International 
Sunday-school lessons and other Sunday-school literature. 
The whole community felt a new fascination in Sunday- 
school work, and the interest became intense. 

He organized singing classes among both the children 
and the adults. He introduced and taught the 
round-note system of singing in that neighborhood, 
supposed to be too difficult for any one to learn except a 
professional. With the round-note system came a better 
grade of song books. He himself had learned to sing and 
to teach others to sing from his father on their pere- 
gi'inations over the country. He inherited a talent for 
music from both his father and his mother. The young 
superintendent drew almost the entire community into his 
Sunday-school by the compelling force of his music and 
personality. People came for miles to hear the wonderful 
singing and to be a part of Champ Clark's Sunday-school. 

There lived at Camden a rich old planter by the name 
of William Stevens, known and loved throughout the 



THE PLOWBOY SCHOOL-TEACHER 35 

countryside as "Uncle Billy." Stevens was a devout mem- 
ber of the Christian Church and a teacher in Champ 
Clark's Sunday-school. He was a great admirer of Clark's 
and saw in him the possibilities of a great pulpit orator. 
He said, "Clark, if you will become a minister in the Chris- 
tian Church, I will give you a thorough education in any 
college in the United States or in Europe." But Clark 
said "No." Those that have heard Mr. Clark utter that 
word on the floor of Congress know what emphasis he 
can throw into its utterance. But "Uncle Billy" was not to 
be turned from his purpose by the hasty though peremp- 
tory decision of the young man. He felt that he himself 
could do great service to Almighty God, to the Church, 
and to humanity, if he could get this young man to come 
into the ministry. He renewed the offer time and again. 
Finally he said: "Clark, if you will accede to my plans 
I will bequeath to you one-half of my estate. Now, don't 
be stubborn and frivolous and foolish about it. Go along 
and do it." Mr. Clark felt that he could not put his 
whole heart into the work, so he declined irrevocably the 
kind and generous offer of Mr. Stevens. Mr. Clark above 
everything else desired to be free and untrammeled as to 
his future course. He was independent and he proposed 
to remain so. 

This was the spirited, typical man of the Middle West 
described so accurately and graphically by Walt Whit- 
man. 

Mr. Clark continued to teach until he was able to go 



36 CHAMP CLARK 

away to school. When his money gave out he returned to 
teaching. He even taught a few terms after being admit- 
ted to the bar. 

Mr. Clark was a great favorite at Camden. After he 
returned from three years in the Kentucky University he 
was again employed to teach the Camden High School. 
He had by this time become a proficient Greek scholar, 
and he is to-day perhaps the finest Greek scholar in public 
life, and he is equally the master of Latin. Upon his 
return to Camden he became the teacher of a teacher. 
A veteran school-teacher sixty-four years old took lessons 
in Greek with Mr. Clark as private tutor. This elderly 
school-teacher studied Greek that he might read his New 
Testament in that ancient language. He used to teach 
Mr. Clark's classes in the schoolroom for two hours each 
day in exchange for one hour of instruction from Mr. 
Clark in Greek. 

Mr. Clark was ardently attached to the vocation of 
teaching. He once declared that he would rather be at 
the head of the Missouri University than to be a Repre- 
sentative in Congress, or Governor of the State, or United 
States Senator. 

In addressing a teachers' institute Mr. Clark delivered 
this eloquent passage: 

"In looking back to my career as a teacher I have one 
abiding consolation and it is this : Wherever my pupils 
are, on land or sea, and in whatever occupation they are 
employed, they are my sworn friends. That glory cannot 



Copyright, 19U', by Edmonston. 

BENNETT CHAMP CLARK 
Opposite p. 37 



THE PLOWBOY SCHOOL-TEACHER 37 

be taken away from me. I hear one of them preach occa- 
sionally, and I take pride in the fact that some people 
say that he speaks like me. When I was in the crisis of 
my political career another, voluntarily and without being 
asked, sent me more money than any other three men in 
the State, and wouldn't even take my note as evidence of 
the debt. Such pupils are a joy forever. 

"I sometimes regret that I ever quit teaching, for while 
I have succeeded fairly well in both law and politics, a 
lawyer is not always certain that he has rendered the 
State a service by acquitting his client, and a Congress- 
man, through ignorance or inadvertence, may vote in such 
a way as to affect adversely the fortunes of 93,000,000 
people ; but a teacher knows that he is doing good when 
teaching the alphabet, the multiplication table, and the 
rudiments of grammar and geography. It is only when 
he strikes history that his feet get into the quicksands." 

Mr. Clark is the devoted friend and patron of the 
Missouri State University, as he is of all the institutions of 
the State. His son, Bennett Clark, was educated at the 
University of Missouri. 

One of Mr. Clark's speeches in Congress was on the 
subject of increasing the salaries of the 1,440 school 
teachers in the city of Washington. This speech was 
delivered before the Committee of the Whole, January 24, 
1905. It reveals not only Mr. Clark's friendship for 
teachers, but also shows his broad statesmanship. 



CHAPTER IV 

University and College 

Champ Clark was rich in varied experiences and strong 
in self-assertion and self-confidence when, at the youthful 
age of seventeen, he entered Kentucky University (now 
Transylvania) at Lexington. By honest toil he had sup- 
plied himself with a few hundred dollars, which he was 
now to spend in getting an education. The energy and 
enterprise called forth in procuring this necessary sum 
had developed in him a practical and resolute nature, 
which made him masterful in the preparation of his lessons 
and in the classroom. His slender purse admonished him 
to practice economy, and economy in money matters 
teaches economy in time and opportunities. The practice 
of it is not inimical to mastering logarithms or learning 
triangulation. Young Clark learned to calculate eclipses 
while at the university, which some of liis classmates, with 
plenty of money, never learned to do at all. 

Mr. Clark entered Kentucky University in the autumn 
of 1867, as may be seen from the catalogue of 1868. The 
catalogues show that he was there again in 1870 and 
1871. He attended the Kentucky University in all three 
years and a half. Before the end of his senior year, when 
he would have graduated, he was expelled for shooting 
at a man named Webb. Mr. Clark's life is an open book. 

38 



UNIVERSITY AND COLLEGE 39 

This shooting affair is in no way a sealed chapter. Mr. 
Clark will look you straight in the eye and tell you all 
about it. The details are unimportant. Mr. Clark, dis- 
cussing the occurrence, said: 

"I fired and missed, a friend knocking the pistol upward 
as I pulled the trigger. Looking back, I feel that I was 
not censurable." 

Notwithstanding his expenses in the university had not 
exceeded a hundred dollars a year, when he left at the 
middle of his last year he was practically without a dollar 
in the world. This did not appall him. It only delayed 
him. He knew how to get more money — by working for 
it. He returned to Camden and resumed teaching. 

Having saved up enough money to maintain liim for a 
year at college, he decided to go to Bethany College, at 
Bethany, West Virginia, a famous institution under the 
supei'vision of the Christian Church — Campbellite Church, 
as Mr. Clark invariably calls it, and has a right so to call 
it, inasmuch as he himself is a member of that church, 
and proudly calls himself a Campbellite. 

He took the junior and senior courses and led all his 
classes in both for an entire year, and delivered the salu- 
tatory in Latin at the closing exercises. Pie was con- 
fronted by an unusual array of obstructions, one of which 
was the everlasting harassment of economy — perhaps his 
best friend after all; certainly not a dreadful enemy. He 
cooked his own meals, wearing a gunny sack for an apron- 
As he cooked he sang songs in Greek or in German. 



40 CHAMP CLARK 

Nothing could suppress his cheerfulness and his optimism 
— always ruling traits in his character. 

At the end of the first month, when the grades were 
made, he was in the lead; the same thing happened the 
second month ; when he was still ahead in the third month 
a feud was started. It was now clearly apparent that 
this young upstart from Kentucky would take all the 
honors. 

This outlook created two factions, the Clark and 
the anti-Clark factions. The Clark faction held that the 
new pupil had a right to all the honors if he could win 
them, while the anti-Clark faction held that those older 
pupils, who had plodded slowly and laboriously up from the 
foundation through years of hard study, and who had 
been foreordained and predestinated by the faculty to re- 
ceive the honors, could not be legally nor morally displaced 
by a late arrival. The faculty was divided; the pupils 
were divided. The tempest in a teapot extended beyond 
the college and the campus, and presently the town of 
Bethany was rent by conflicting opinions concerning the 
controversy. Mr. Clark, in an interview, said of this con- 
test: 

"The situation grew hotter and hotter. I was not 
headed once during the year and walked off with the high- 
est honors. The man who expected to win appealed the 
case from the faculty to the curators. The curators, 
among whom was Alexander Campbell, son of the founder 
of the Campbellites, sustained the faculty." 



UNIVERSITY AND COLLEGE 41 

Mr. Clark developed into a good writer and a good 
debater while at Bethany. He was unsurpassed in college 
literary exercises, and he contributed somewhat volumi- 
nously to various religious and political periodicals. For 
his diversion he translated German songs into English. 
He was regarded by many as a poet of great promise. 
His verses in English were published under the nom de 
plum£, "Sans Peur." Sir William Blackstone long hesi- 
tated as to whether he should be a poet or a lawyer, and 
when finally he decided in favor of the law he wrote a 
delightful farewell to his muse. Champ Clark has never 
been given to indecision, and probably he was not tempted 
at any time to become a poet, though possessed of the 
tastes and powers of a poet. His efforts at versification 
were intended for profitable literary exercise. Thus he 
gained the literary polish that so distinguishes all his 
writings. But the mechanical construction of sentences 
that so delighted him never took the place of logic and 
sound reasoning. The study of law is the study of the 
very sum and essence of human reason, and what attracted 
him most was the province of pure reason, so he chose 
law as his profession. 

A few days after he was graduated from Bethany, Col. 
Alexander Campbell, of West Virginia, son of the famous 
theologian, asked Clark what he intended to do in the 
future. He replied that he was going to teach a year or 
so and then practice law. He told Clark to write out an 
application and give it to him — that he thought he could 



42 CHAMP CLARK 

secure a college presidency for him. Having no idea that 
such a thing was possible, Clark wrote an application, 
which must have taken away the breath of the college 
curators, and which, it is likely on account of its unique- 
ness and the confidence expressed, secured him a position. 
The application read: "I have just graduated from Beth- 
any College with highest honors ; am twenty-three years 
old, over six feet high, weigh one hundred and seventy 
pounds, unmarried, am a Kentuckian by birth, a Camp- 
bellite in religion, a Democrat in politics, and a Master 
Mason." 

Mr. Clark did not secure the presidency of the school, 
West Liberty State Normal, for which he had applied, 
but was surprised a few days later when he was notified 
that he had been elected, not president of West Liberty, 
but of Marshall College, the first Normal School of West 
Virginia, located at Huntington, at a salary of $1,400 
a year. He was unquestionably the youngest college 
president in the world. 

Because of Clark's youth many of the students at Mar- 
shall, some of whom were older than the president, con- 
cluded that they could conduct themselves to suit their 
own fancies, but this conclusion proved an illusion. One 
incident served to dispel the students' hope of many 
"larks" under the Clark regime. Soon after his term 
began four young men blacked and greased the face of a 
fellow student while he slept, an act that greatly humili- 
ated the victim. He made complaint to the young presi- 



UNIVERSITY AND COLLEGE 43 

dent, who, upon investigation , discovered the guilty ones. 
Hunting up the perpetrators, he said: "Boys, you did 
wrong, and you must do the manly thing and apologize 
at chapel ser^'ices." Three of them did so cheerfully, but 
the fourth declared that he would not. President Clark 
said to him, "One of three things will happen — you will 
apologize publicly, I will expel you publicl}^ or I will 
thrash you within an inch of your life." To this the 
student replied with the question, "How much time will 
you give me to reflect upon these propositions?" "One 
hour, sir," replied the president. At the expiration of the 
allotted time the offender returned and said, "I don't 
want to be expelled ; I don't want to fight ; I will apolo- 
gize." He did, and was henceforth one of the president's 
staunchest friends and most industrious students. There 
was no more trouble in maintaining discipline. Hazing 
in JNlarshall College was at an end. 

Champ Clark held the presidency of Marshall College 
but one year, when he resigned to enter the Cincinnati 
Law School. 



CHAPTER V 

Seeking a Location 

Upon completing his legal education at the Cincinnati 
Law School in 1875, Mr. Clark discerned, as he thought, 
a field awaiting him in Kansas. At that time the wild 
ranges of Texas and the Southwest were sending drove 
after drove of cattle to various new railroad points in 
Southern Kansas for shipment to the Eastern markets. 
From Corpus Christi, Texas, to Abilene, Kansas, a broad 
trail, like a shadow but waterless canal, two hundred 
yards wide, extended for a thousand miles, and along this 
dust-beclouded highway innumerable herds, each from one 
to three miles long, moved slowly northward, each herd 
accompanied by a band of drovers and ranchmen, the 
owners of the herds and their employees, known every- 
where as cowboys. 

This cattle trade had begun in 1867, and was just fairly 
under way when Mr. Clark arrived in Kansas in 1875. 
Joseph G. McCoy, who started the movement of cattle 
from Texas to Abilene, and who was employed in the 
United States Census Department in 1880 and 1890, is 
authority for the statement that ten million head of live 
stock, to the latter date, had been driven from the South 
and Southwestern cattle ranges to the nearest railroad at 
various points in southern Kansas, including Abilene, 

44 



SEEKING A LOCATION 45 

Wichita, Dodge City, and Great Bend. The trade left 
Abilene as a terminal in 1874, and went to Wichita for 
two years, and for two years only. Mr. Clark arrived on 
the scene just at the time when the cattle trade was with- 
drawing to Great Bend. That was grasshopper year, too. 

The Spanish milled dollars, so current for a while at 
Wichita, had disappeared. There were no Greasers to be 
arrested, and brought into court ; no business of any kind. 
Mr. Clark filed one case at Wichita and departed, after 
a residence there of eleven weeks. Discussing this episode 
in his search for a place to settle, Mr. Clark once said: 
"The grasshoppers drove mo out of the Sunflower State. 
That was the year Governor Hardin prayed them out of 
Missouri. People can make fun of that performance as 
much as they please ; but I believe that prayers are an- 
swered, and that the prayers of the Missourians saved the 
State from devastation by the Rocky Mountain pests. 
Had I remained in Wichita I might have grown rich ; but 
I was afraid of the grasshoppers." 

He had been induced to go to Kansas by the eloquent 
recommendations of his classmate at the Cincinnati Law 
School, Jeff Hudson. Mr. Clark and Mr. Hudson were 
among the few Democratic representatives in the law 
school, and side by side they engaged in forensic tourna- 
ments with their colleagues, during the days following re- 
construction in the South, when Phil Sheridan, as Clark 
picturesquely phrased it, "was pitching a Democratic Leg- 
islature out of the window with his bayonets down in New 



46 CHAMP CLARK 

Orleans." After leaving the law school the two did not 
meet again until they met as members of Congress in Wash- 
ington, and there they renewed their friendship, and on a 
wider field again exercised their powers of oratory in behalf 
of Democracy. 

Mr. Clark spent his last dollar at Wichita. He went to 
Missouri by Instinct. He had no friends nor acquaintances 
there. 

He went to Moberlj-^, Missouri, looking for a school, the 
necessity being imperative for him to find Immediate em- 
ployment. Practicing law was slmpl}' out of the question 
for the time being. He was offered a school at the his- 
toric old town of Renick, near Moberly, and he accepted 
it at fifty-five dollars a month, explaining that he was 
taking the position through force of circumstances. The 
school board generously agreed to release him If he could 
find a position more in keeping with his qualifications. 

The superintendent of schools to whom he went for the 
necessary teacher's certificate was a native of Pike 
County, living at Moberly. He was astonished when he 
saw the diplomas and certificates presented by the beard- 
less applicant for a certificate to teach school in Randolph 
County. He said to Clark: "Why don't you go to Pike 
County and teach the High School In Louisiana? There 
is a vacancy there. Professor George Osbom has resigned 
to become president of the State Normal School at War- 
rensburg. Go down to Louisiana and get that position 
at a big salary." This was the first invitation Clark ever 



SEEKING A LOCATION 47 

received to live In Pike County; he needed no second in- 
vitation. The name of the man was Rutherford. 

Mr. Clark hastened to Louisiana, in Pike County, Mis- 
souri, the home of Dave Ball. Professor Clark taught for 
one year in Louisiana, receiving a good salar}*. This 
put him on his feet by relieving his immediate wants. Dur- 
ing this year he said nothing about being a lawyer. He 
believed in doing one thing at a time and doing that well. 
At the close of his school he surprised the town by hang- 
ing out his shingle as a lawyer. Pike County was famous 
then as it has ever been for legal talent, and Clark was 
not overwhelmed with legal work. While waiting for 
clients he edited a newspaper, and this introduced him 
to local politics. 

During the summer of 1876 the Tilden-Hayes cam- 
paign called into action every politician in the country. 
David A. Ball, the ablest lawyer in northwest Missouri, 
and Champ Clark made speeches together all over Pike 
County for the Democratic ticket. In this campaign 
Mr. Clark showed remarkable political instinct, and es- 
tablished a local reputation as an able stump-speaker. The 
people of Pike saw a new light, and with open-hearted 
hospitality received gladly to their hearts this young 
favorite. Mr. Ball was so taken with his colleague on 
this speaking tour that he proposed a partnership. The 
friendship of the two was that of David and Jonathan over 
again. Loyalty is a distinguishing quality in the charac- 
ters of both Clark and Ball. The lasting affection of these 



48 CHAMP CLARK 

two men for each other has long been the admiration of the 
entire country. 

The law partnership of Ball and Clark ended by mutual 
consent in March, 1878, when Ball entered the race for 
the office of prosecuting attorney and Clark received the 
Democratic nomination for the Legislature, but was de- 
feated at the general election by Enoch Pepper, who 
received the support of all the Greenbackers and Repub- 
licans. 



CHAPTER VI 

Ten Eventful Years in Pike 

Ten years after Mr. Clark's first aspirations for legis- 
lative honors in 1878, he became a candidate again for 
the same office, and was elected. This was in 1888, the 
year that Harrison defeated Cleveland for the presidency. 
But during that intervening period of ten years Mr. Clark 
had not been idle, politically or otherwise. He built up a 
good law practice, participating actively in every political 
campaign, and while becoming a good lawyer, became also 
a good politician. 

During this time he met and manned Miss Genevieve 
Bennett. He became a householder and a father. He was 
now a prosperous Pike County citizen, with prospects 
ahead that never permitted his ambition to slumber. 
His wife was a helpmate indeed. They were both 
students of wide ranges of literature, with a decider, 
preference for history. Their tastes were nearly identical, 
as their purposes were; they were devoted to each other, 
and to their little daughter, whom they named Ann Ham- 
ilton, and whose loss brought them their first great sorrow. 

Mr. Clark's first notable case in Pike County, and the 
first notable one in his life, was tried soon after the elec- 
tion of his old law partner, David A. Ball, to the office of 
prosecuting attorney, in 1878. The case was the trial of 

49 



50 CHAMP CT.ARK 

a negro, Jerry Hill, for killing one of his own race. Con- 
viction was thought to be impossible. The community 
was glad to be rid of the negro that was killed; he was 
a local terror and a bully ; he whipped negroes and white 
men with equal impunity and impartiality. He was a 
powerful fellow, and without the sense of fear. Negroes 
and whites alike were afraid of him. A number of persons 
said that he ought to be killed, and that anybody who 
would do it would be hailed as a public benefactor. 

Jerry Hill took them at their word and killed the bully. 
Public sentiment applauded and Jerry's bail was fixed at 
three hundred dollars, so trifling was the case. Every law- 
yer in the county had volunteered to defend Jerry, includ- 
ing David Ball, the new prosecuting attorney, from which 
fact the court found It necessary to appoint a special 
prosecutor for this case. As usual the court selected the 
youngest and least occupied lawyer at the bar. The one 
indicated by these conditions was Champ Clark. This 
forlorn case was Mr. Clark's opportunity, and a great 
one it proved to be ; It established him as an able and com- 
ing lawyer. He studied the case thoroughly and prepared 
for the trial with all the zeal of his ardent nature. His 
address to the jury was so powerful that Jerry was con- 
victed of murder in the first degree. The sentence of capi- 
tal punishment was afteinvard commuted to twenty-five 
years In the State prison, but the commutation detracted 
nothing from Clark's speech, which many maintained was 
the greatest that they had ever heard in a trial case; 



TEN EVENTFUL YEARS IN PIKE 51 

rather the commutation showed that the speech had car- 
ried the jury beyond the previous demand of public senti- 
ment. 

The conviction of Jerry Hill indicated Clark as the 
logical successor to Ball in the office of prosecuting attor- 
ney. Indeed, Mr. Ball put Mr. Clark in training by 
appointing him deputy prosecutor at Bowling Green, the 
county-seat of Pike County, and thither the new appointee 
repaired; and his home has been there from that day to 
this, first as a bachelor and then as a man of family. 

At the conclusion of Mr. Ball's two tenns in the office 
of prosecuting attorney, Mr. Clark was elected and held 
the office for two terms. At the conclusion of his second 
temi he was elected to the Legislature, in which he began 
his career as a lawmaker. The Missouri Legislature was 
a stepping-stone on the way to Congress. 

As prosecuting attorney Mr. Clark made a memorable 
record. He was the terror of law-breakers. Mr. Clark 
brought to the office of prosecuting attorney of Pike 
County the same zeal that he brings to every task of life. 
He tried over 2,000 criminal cases, a record most remark- 
able for celerity in the dispatch of business. "The law's 
delay" found no abiding place in the cases coming under 
his supervision. He tried all kinds of cases, from horse- 
stealing to murder in the first degree. The weak cases as 
well as the strong received his earnest attention ; the sen- 
sational as well as the prosaic. Mr. Clark's aptitude for 
public service was conspicuous during his four years as 



52 CHAMP CLARK 

prosecuting attorney. This was his first office involving 
large public trusts, and his faithfulness, industry, and 
good judgment were evident in every case. He worked 
hard. Reviewing liis efforts soon after retiring from the 
office and becoming a member of the Legislature, he said: 
"The office of prosecuting attorney brings out the best in 
a man. It tests liis energy and ability, if he has any pride 
in the success of his work." 

A most remarkable story is told in Pike County of the 
manner in Avhich Mr. Clark was brought into the race for 
the Legislature. Perhaps no other man, living or dead, 
can claim the distinction that marked the last year of his 
career as prosecuting attorney. The Pike County grand 
jury nominated Mr. Clark for the Legislature. The 
grand jury was in session in March, 1888, and at the close 
of its session the foreman asked Mr. Clark if he would like 
to go to the Legislature. Mr. Clark was not sure that 
he wanted the office. He had wanted it ten years before 
that, but he now looked forward to a good law business. 
However, the foreman of the grand jury put the ques- 
tion, "All those in favor of Mr. Clark's going to the 
Legislature say 'Aye' ; those opposed, 'No.' " The vote 
was unanimous for Clark, who looked upon the perform- 
ance as inconsequential. But the jurors were in earnest, 
and presently the Clark boom was under full headway. 
Three or four candidates withdrew in Clark's favor. 
When the Democratic county convention met Mr. Clark 



TEN EVENTFUL YEARS IN PIKE 53 

became the regular nominee for the Legislature and was 
elected. 

Mr. Clark's earliest biographers,* Wilfred R. Hollister 
and Harry Nomtian, in "Five Famous Missourians," relate 
the following occurrence, illustrating Clark's fearless 
character and his faithful adherence to his duty : 

"During the time that he held the office of prosecuting 
attorney a man named Latimer shot and killed a man 
named Griffith. Latimer was a popular citizen, while the 
murdered man was decidedly unpopular. The evidence 
against Latimer was circumstantial, and scarce at that, 
but when the tim.e came for the case to be argued, Clark 
prepared to make a tremendous effort to sway not only 
public opinion, but the jury also, by a strong speech 
prosecuting Latimer. The court-house was filled on the 
closing day of the trial, probably five hundred or six hun- 
dred persons being there. 

"Of this number perhaps not more than two or three 
were in sympathy with the prosecution, the remainder 
wanting Latimer set at liberty. Clark arose to 
close for the State. He saw plainly that he was 
contending against heavy odds, yet began to make 
a vigorous denunciation of Latimer in a crowd composed 



*Mr. Clark's first biography in book form was written and pub- 
lished by Wilfred R. Hollister and Harry Norman in 1900. The title 
of the book was "Five Famous Missourians." The book was a small 
volume, but very creditable, and contained the biographical sketches 
of Samuel L. Clemens, Richard P. Bland, Champ Clark, James M. 
Greenwood, and Joseph O. Shelby. 



54 CHAMP CLARK 

of the accused man's friends. To illustrate the power of 
his eloquence, he had been speaking scarcely half an hour 
before the crowd of Latimer partisans broke into pro- 
longed applause at one of Clark's lightning-like argu- 
ments directed against the head of Latimer. The court 
became angry at this display of lack of court etiquette 
on the part of the crowd, and severely rebuked the ap- 
plause. Clai-k waited for the excitement to subside, then, 
after talking twenty minutes, he reached the climax of his 
arraignment, at which the crowd shouted terrifically, 
fairly shaking the building with the thunderous applause, 
for few such speeches had ever been heard in the court- 
room of Pike County. Despairingly the court gave up 
the attempt, and made no effort to restrain the great dem- 
onstration. Despite this masterful speechmaking effort of 
Clark's the jury cleared Latimer because of insufficient 
proof." 

No man ever had better training for leadership than 
Mr. Clark had in his early days with vexatious and nerve- 
racking political experiences in Pike County and the 
"Bloody Ninth," as the Pike County district was called, 
but which has been rechristened under Clark's leadership 
as the "Peaceful Ninth." Mr. Clark began in the Pike 
County political kindergarten and went through all the 
various grades, including a thorough postgraduate 
course. 

His first office was that of city attorney of Louisiana. 
He resigned this office after two years of faithful 



TEN EVENTFUL YEARS IN PIKE 55 

service, because the prosecution of persons for petty 
offenses was disagreeable to him. He held the ofBce 
of city attorney also in Bowling Green. These offices 
gave him insight into the working of municipal and ward 
politics. From the time he left the schoolroom in Louisi- 
ana and entered upon the practice of law, he has never 
failed to be active in every campaign. As prosecuting 
attorney and as deputy under Ball he canvassed Pike 
County four times ; since then he has done the same thing 
without fail every two years. He was always a delegate 
in those early days to all State conventions, where he 
always made speeches and never a poor one. He took 
conspicuous part in the Congressional contests of his dis- 
trict before he himself ever entered the race for Congress. 
In 1888 David R. Francis was the Democratic nominee 
for Governor of Missouri. Clark and Francis canvassed 
the entire State together. Francis was elected Governor 
and Clark went to the Legislature. The year 1888 wit- 
nessed the advent of Richard H. Norton into the Pike 
County Congressional district campaign. Judge Elijah 
Robinson came Into the field against Norton. These two 
men were native Missourians and they stood high as law- 
yers. Judge Robinson had sei'ved as circuit judge, and 
was recognized as a very able man. Primary elections 
were unknown in those days in Missouri. All nominations 
from constable to Congressman were made in convention. 
Norton and Robinson came into the Congressional conven- 
tion with the delegates equally divided between them. 



56 CHAMP CLARK 

The deadlock persisted until the friends of both 
candidates agi'eed to toss up a penny to decide which 
should withdraw. Norton won and Robinson withdrew. 
This scene disgusted Mr. Clark, and that winter, as a 
member of the Legislature, he became a strong advocate 
of primary elections. During that session of the Legisla- 
ture a resolution passed demanding the election of United 
States Senators by direct vote, and Mr. Clark supported 
the resolution. The Australian secret ballot system was 
inaugurated that winter, and the Robinson-Norton episode 
no doubt stimulated Mr. Clark to a more strenuous sup- 
port of the measure. 

Mr. Norton went to Congress on the toss of a penny. 
But he perceived on the horizon the well-defined outlines 
of a mighty figure, ominous, threatening — the figure of 
Champ Clark. The sound of a new voice came over from 
the legislative halls of Jefferson City. The people knew 
Champ Clark to be absolutely honest, the sworn, outspoken 
enemy of all political chicanery. His ability was recog- 
nized wherever he was known. Those who knew him best 
said that he possessed all the elements of a great man. 
Carlyle says the world knows not well at any time what 
to do with a great man when he appears on earth, but 
Pike County is wiser than the world was as Carlyle saw it. 
It knew almost from the first what to do with Champ 
Clark. 

If Pike County has been loyal to Clark, so also has he 
been loyal to Pike. He is always a self-constituted com- 



TEN EVENTFUL YEARS IN PIKE 57 

mittee of one to sound the praises of Pike County and of 
Missouri, and of the entire West. 

In a speech before an "old settlers" meeting in Mis- 
souri he recounted at length the notables of his State, 
coming to a close with those of his own Congressional dis- 
trict. Said he: 

"One of my constituents, Thomas Jefferson Jackson 
See, a graduate of the University of Missouri, has recently 
set the scientific world agog with his works on astronomy. 
He is the coming man among the stars, and bids fair to 
rival the fame of Kepler, Copernicus, and Lord Herschel. 

"James Newton Basket, of Mexico, has written the best 
book about birds since Audubon. 

"Strangest of all, Charles Emerson, of Pike County, 
became king of one of the South Pacific islands." 

The election in Pike County in 1888 started Mr. Clark 
on his career as a lawmaker. 



CHAPTER VII 

Member of the Thiety-fifth Geneeal Assembly 

Mr. Clark signalized his advent into the Missouri Leg- 
islature by a brilliant speech in the Democratic caucus, 
nominating the Rev. J. B. Trone, of Henry County, for 
chaplain of the House. Discussing this speech afterward 
in a private conversation, Mr. Clark said in substance : "I 
had always injected humor into my speeches, but when I 
was elected to the Legislature, I determined to suppress 
all tendency to humor whatsoever and to conform all my 
speeches to models of earnestness, with no frivolity. My 
new resolve was to be carried out for the first time in pre- 
senting Brother Trone for the caucus nomination, but 
despite my good intentions the House was In an uproar 
of laughter throughout the speech. I then gave it up. 
I discovered that humor was a part of my nature, and I 
gave up all attempts to suppress it." 

This speech was a splendid introduction for Mr. Clark. 
It gave him standing at once as a speaker and as a man 
of influence in the Legislature. Many of the members had 
never heard him make a speech. Indeed, many never had 
heard his name. The speech was a fine introduction of him 
not only to the members of the Legislature, but also to the 
people of the State, as it was given wide circulation in the 
newspapers throughout the country, and was the founda- 

68 



MEMBER OF GENERAL ASSEMBLY 69 

tion of the speaker's national fame. No doubt it led to 
liis invitation to appear in Tammany Hall a few years 
later. In this speech, as in all his speeches, he captured 
the audience with his opening sentence. His voice, loud 
and commanding, rang over the Hall of Representatives, 
and the audience was his from first to last. His opening 
words were: 

"Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Caucus, I have 
the honor to nominate a shouting Methodist for chaplain, 
and one who has not only shouted for the religion of 
Christ, but for the Southern Confederacy as well." The 
applause which greeted this opening passage continued 
from time to time to the very end of the address. The 
closing paragraph, outlining the life and character of Mr. 
Trone, is a fascinating piece of word painting and happily 
displays the speaker's ability accurately to estimate a 
man's worth. He said: 

"Bom on the soil of Virginia, he was brought by his par- 
ents as a babe in arms to Missouri, when it was still the 
habitat of the red Indian and the wild beast, and he has 
done his full part in laying the broad foundation of this 
mighty State. He was a pioneer farmer and a frontier 
blacksmith, a leonine soldier of Joe Shelby, the bosom friend 
of Major Edwards, honored and beloved by all who ever 
looked into his honest eyes. At the close of the war he 
returned to his little farm as poor as Lazarus, to find his 
home in ashes and his wife and children in a negro cabin. 
He didn't whine. He doesn't belong to that school of sol- 



60 CHAMP CLARK 

diers. He spent no time crying over spilt irilk ; he had too 
much sense for that. Bravely and resolutely he took up the 
burdens of life without vain regrets on account of the inev- 
itable. Early and late upon his anvil he celebrated the 
jubilee of peace. Industriously he tickled with the hoe 
the rich face of a Henry County farm, and it smiled with 
abundant harvest. Jo^^fully and liberally obeying the 
Scriptural injunction to 'multiply and replenish the earth,' 
he has the honor to be the proud and happy father of 
eleven Missouri Democrats. 

"In naming him, placid and majestic Northeast Mis- 
souri sends hearty greeting to the glowing and gorgeous 
Southwest ; the old and historic county of Pike clasps 
hands with the young and ambitious county of Henry; 
the kid Democrats bow their profoundest acknowledg- 
ments to the veterans of the Old Guard ; the running-water 
Campbellite backs the shouting Methodist. I present for 
your suffrages the name of J. B. Trone." 

Amid the shouts of applause and laughter that greeted 
the conclusion of this speech, Mr. Trone was made the 
nominee of the caucus by unanimous vote. 

The Hon. J. J. Russell, of Mississippi County, was 
Speaker of the Lower House of the Thirty-fifth General 
Assembly. Mr. Russell has been a member of Congress 
for a number of years, and he is a staunch supporter of 
his colleague Clark for the presidency. The author has 
the following letter from Mr. Russell on "Champ Clark in 
the Missouri Legislature": 



MEMBER OF GENERAL ASSEMBLY 61 

"Champ Clark was elected to the Thirty-fifth General 
Assembly from Pike County at the general election in 
1888. Prior to that time he had held no office, except that 
of city attorney of Louisiana and Bowling Green and 
prosecuting attorney of Pike County, but his ability and 
his powers as a stump-speaker were already well-known in 
Northeast and Central Missouri, where his services had 
been sought in Democratic campaigns. 

"When he reached the State Capitol to begin his ser- 
vices in the Legislature, he found a contest going on for 
the Speakership. The Hon. Waller Young, the Hon. 
Nick Thurmond, and I were the avowed and active candi- 
dates. Mr. Clark came promptly to my headquarters and 
promised me his support, and assured me of my success 
in the caucus, which was a true prophecy, as the other 
candidates soon afterward all withdrew, and I was nomi- 
nated by acclamation. After my nomination and election 
were made certain by the withdrawal of the other candi- 
dates, Mr. Clark came to me and In his peculiar, but natural 
and plain, style said, 'Russell, I want to make reputation 
enough in this session to go to Congress, and as I have 
been prosecuting attorney of Pike County I know more 
about criminal law than anything else, and Avould like to 
be chairman of the Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence.' 

"I told him that I would consider his request, and would 
do the best I could for him, but reminded him that he was 
a new member, and that there were other members who 
had served upon that committee that desired the chair- 



62 CHAMP CLARK 

manshlp. I at that time asked him to place me in nomi- 
nation for Speaker in the House, which he did in one of 
his happy and appropriate speeches. 

"When arranging the committees of the House I was 
strongly urged to follow precedent and to appoint the 
ranking Democrat of the Criminal Jurisprudence Com- 
mittee as chairman, but I remembered the earnestness of 
my friend Champ Clark ; I knew he was a big man, and 
I believed he was one with a future brilliant career. I 
deliberately concluded that I could ajfford to make an ex- 
ception in his case, and so determined to, and did, give 
him the chairmanship that he desired. 

"As chairman of that committee and as a member of the 
House, he worked with the same industry, the same zeal, 
with the same devotion to principle, and with the same 
fidelity to the cause of the people that have always since 
characterized his services in the National House of Rep- 
resentatives. 

"During that session, on the 30th day of April, 1889, 
the centennial anniversary of our National Constitutional 
Government, Mr. Clark was selected by the House to de- 
liver an oration, which he did in a pleasing, an appropriate, 
and a masterly way. This speech was published in full in 
some of the papers of the State, and attracted attention to 
him as a scholar, a student of history, a statesman, and 
a brilliant man of gi'eat promise. 

"Mr. Clark was by common consent the Democratic 
leader of the House, and whenever any discussion assumed 



MEMBER OF GENERAL ASSEMBLY 63 

a political aspect he was the ready and willing spokesman 
of the Democratic party, and his chief opponent on the 
Republican side was John H. Flanigan, who, because of the 
extravagance of his language, and the exuberance of his 
enthusiasm, became generally known as 'Fire-Alarm' 
Flanigan. Many hot tilts were witnessed between them, 
but, to the credit of both, they continued to be warm 
personal friends. 

"After the session was ended Mr. Flanigan was indicted 
for some alleged offense, and Champ Clark, his recent 
antagonist in many a hot contest in the State Legislature, 
promptly volunteered his services to assist, and did assist, 
in his defense. 

"This at the time, to many of Mr. Clark's friends, 
seemed to be an unpopular, if not an improper, thing for 
him to do, but true to his natural fondness for, and his 
loyalty to, his personal friends, and to the credit of his 
heart, he did not consider that phase of the matter, but 
went to the distant home of his former political foe and 
made for him one of the hardest legal fights of his life. 

"During the session of the Legislature and prior to its 
meeting much complaint was made against the administra- 
tion of Dr. S. S. Laws as president of the State University 
at Columbia, and threats were frequently made by un- 
friendly members of their determination to try to defeat 
any appropriation bill for that institution in which Dr. 
Laws might possibly share. 

"Finally the Hon. W. L. Webb, of Jackson County, 



64 CHAMP CLARK 

introduced a joint and concurrent resolution providing 
for the appointment of a joint committee by the House 
and Senate to make an investigation of the charges. Mr. 
Clark offered a substitute for this resolution, which was 
adopted. Accordingly, as Speaker, I appointed Mr. 
Clark, the Hon. W. L. Webb, the Hon. George Houck, 
and J. Brooks as members of the committee. The Senate 
members were W. P. Sheldon and T. W. Sebree. I ap- 
pointed Mr. Clark as chairman, for two reasons. First, 
his substitute was adopted, which, by the rule of precedent, 
entitled him to the chairmanship ; and, second, because I 
had been a student in the State University, felt an inter- 
est in its welfare, and wanted the job well done. 

"This committee worked diligently, investigating all the 
facts, and made a report adverse to Dr. Laws. When 
it was considered in the House Mr. Clark made, I think, 
the most eloquent, forceful, and effective speech of any 
that I have ever heard him make, and I have heard him 
make many, and it was pronounced at the time as the most 
powerful prosecution ever heard by the entire membership 
of the House. 

"The report was adopted, both in the House and in the 
Senate, making it necessary for Dr. Laws to resign, or to 
sever his connection with the State University. 

"It was understood at the time that Dr. Laws was very 
much embittered against Champ Clark, and I heard that 
he said that his strong prosecution of him was prompted 
by a desire to make a reputation that would send him to 



MEMBER OF GENERAL ASSEMBLY 65 

Congress ; but that was a mistake, as I personally know 
that Mr, Clark was afraid that, on account of the prox- 
imity of his district to Columbia, and because of the many 
friends of Dr. Laws in that district, his prosecution of him 
would be hurtful to his political prospects. But his efforts 
in that investigation were, as have been all his labors as 
a servant of the people, inspired by his desire to do what 
he believed to be right, and by his devotion to his public 
duty. 

"Since I have been in Congress I had a pleasant expe- 
rience that is not only apropos in this connection, but is 
worthy of mention as indicating the generosity that we 
often witness in the lives and hearts of men, and the for- 
giving spirit that often pervades our beings as 'Time 
drags its weary length along,' and as we grow older and 
approach nearer the end of our earthly careers. 

"Mr. Clark came to me in the House and said : *Dr. S. 
S. Laws is in the gallery and is going to take lunch with 
me, and I would like to have you take lunch with us.' He 
added that Dr. Laws had forgiven him and was then his 
good friend, and suggested that, as I had appointed him 
chairman of the committee that brought about the differ- 
ences between them, he would be glad to have me dine 
with them, which I did. I found Dr. Laws was glad 
to meet me again, and I was glad to find that he was a 
very warai friend of Mr. Clark, and tliat he was delighted 
to know that he had achieved such great success and had 
become a national character of such good repute. 



66 CHAMP CLARK 

"Having served with Champ Clark in the State Legis- 
lature, I feel great pride in the reputation that he has 
made and the honors that he has won and deserved in the 
American Congress, and the greatest pleasure that comes 
to me as a Member of Congress is the fact that I now 
occupy a seat in the House over which my good friend 
of years ago presides with such ability, grace, and fair- 
ness, and with the universal popular approval of the entire 
membership." 

Representative Webb's resolution contemplated an in- 
vestigation of the Agricultural College. When the resolu- 
tion was read Mr. Clark asked that it be permitted to go 
over until the following morning, as he desired to offer a 
substitute. He said that he had been contemplating such 
a resolution. Accordingly, the substitute prevailed the 
next morning. Mr. Clark offered a joint and concurrent 
resolution which empowered the committee to send for per- 
sons and papers, to employ a stenographer, to administer 
the oath to witnesses, and required the committee to go to 
Columbia and make a full investigation into both the 
Agricultural College and the University proper. The 
committee spent ten days at Columbia, holding session 
day and night, and in that time examined a large number 
of witnesses. 

Mr. Clark's greatest speech in the Missouri Legislature 
— perhaps the greatest he has ever made anjrw^here — was 
the one against Dr. Laws. 

Mr. Clark once alluded to the committee report, the oc- 



MEMBER OF GENERAL ASSEMBLY 67 

casion of the speech, as "doing good for the human race." 
The speech was a powerful presentation of the case against 
Dr. Laws. It was a regular Philippic. The investigating 
committee could not agree on a report, and so two reports 
were made. The House was divided, a small minority sup- 
porting the minority report. Mr. Clark was ably aided in 
his advocacy of the majority report by Capt. James H. 
Kneisley, of Boone County. Capt. Kneisley had been a 
cannoneer in the Confederate aniiy, and his oratory re- 
minded the hearer of a man in command of a battery dur- 
ing a siege. The committee delayed its report until some 
impatient member introduced a resolution, which was 
adopted, calling for a report at once. Mr. Clark, as chair- 
man of the committee, brought in the report then and 
there — a voluminous document. Those that have seen 
Mr. Clark during the few minutes preceding one of his im- 
passioned speeches can readily imagine his nervous activity 
as he brought together the papers that it was necessary 
for him to have in his hands in making the report to the 
House. His eyes flashed, and he resembled the war horse 
described in the Book of Job. Had Dr. Laws seen the 
expression on Mr. Clark's face, he would have thought 
it baleful. Dr. Laws had failed in a mighty trust — intol- 
erable to Mr. Clark, whose love of duty is almost a pas- 
sion; who holds to public duty as he holds to honor. 
His feelings were high on this occasion, as they are on 
all great occasions, but his words were moderate. He 
knew Dr. Laws to be a great, strong, scholarly man — and 



68 CHAMP CLARK 

Clark has ever honored such men. Entertaining, therefore, 
the highest possible regard for Dr. Laws, yet regarding 
him as unfit by temperament for the exalted position of 
educator of the youth of the land, he made this speech as 
a patriot performing a painful but necessary duty. He 
always insisted that Dr. Laws was one of the most intel- 
lectual and scholarly men in America. Here is a passage 
from liis speech: 

"I know what a school-teacher and college president 
should be. I understand in what relation the teacher 
should stand to the pupil. He should stand loco pa- 
rentis. The best judges of a teacher's merits are his 
grown-up pupils. I am willing to be tried by that test. 
Who that is worthy will shrink from it? I rejoice this 
day to think that my pupils, wherever they may be, on 
land or sea, are my sworn friends." 

Mr. Clark was a most conscientious investigator at 
Columbia. He secured evidence in every possible way. 
Sometimes he took a long walk out on the country roads 
of Boone County. He invariably accosted any man he met 
and engaged in conversation about Dr. Laws and the man- 
agement of the University, and about the management of 
the State Farm and the Agi*icultural College. He reported 
his excursions to the committee, in order that each mem- 
ber might have all the infonnation that he possessed. 

Many of the students in the State University were sum- 
moned before the investigating committee, among them a 
young graduate of that year, Thomas Jefferson Jackson 



MEMBER OF GENERAL ASSEMBLY 69 

See, who even then was displaying remarkable insight into 
the science of astronomy. He was an enthusiastic witness 
against Dr. Laws. His evidence had unmistakable weig-ht 
with the committee. His evidence, corroborated by other 
witnesses among the students, gave Mr. Clark strong 
argument in his speech. Mr. Clark and Dr. See, "the 
statesman and the scientist," date their friendship from 
the committee room in Columbia. They liave watched 
each other and admired each other from that day to this, 
utterly divergent though their careers have been. 

Mr. See came to the State University from his father's 
farm in Montgomery County, Missouri, where he was 
bom. After graduating from the Missouri University he 
went to the University of Berlin, where in due time he 
graduated with high honors. His gi'aduating theme was 
"Binary Stars," an amplification of his graduating sub- 
ject at the Missouri University. He was recognized as a 
man of extraordinary powers as an astronomer. He has 
gone from one achievement to another, making discoveries 
and writing voluminous works on various astronomical 
subjects. His Capture theory of the formation of the 
solar system has superseded the Laplace theory, and is 
now accepted by astronomers the world over as the true 
theory. His theory of the causes of earthquakes, recently 
announced, is undoubtedly the true theory, while his "De- 
termination of the Depth of the Milky Way" is another 
of his most astounding triumphs in astronomy. Champ 
Clark denominates Prof. See "The American Herschel." 



70 CHAMP CLARK 

]VIr. Clark was a conscientious and broad-gauged legis- 
lator in the Missouri General Assembly. He left his im- 
print upon every important measure enacted during that 
long session (Revising Session). He spoke on important 
measures only. He was an industrious committee worker^ 
and was never absent from the House sessions except upon 
important legislative work. He was the ablest debater 
on the floor, and one of the most influential members. He 
was a dangerous man to attack ; he alwa^^s met any chance 
opponent who assailed him with the delivery of an unex- 
pected and crushing blow. 

The Thirty-fifth General Assembl}' was in session during 
the long winter of 1889. Socially the winter was a bril- 
liant one at the State Capital. David R. Francis was 
the newly installed Governor. The receptions given by 
Governor Francis and Mrs. Francis at the Mansion were 
frequent and brilliant. Mrs. Clark spent the winter with 
Mr. Clark at Jefferson City. She was very popular, and 
so was her charming, winsome child, a sweet little golden- 
haired daughter, Ann Hamilton Clark, who did not live 
beyond four years of age. She was a lovable child, known 
at the State Capital as the "Belle of Pike." 

The regular session of the Thirty-fifth General Assem- 
bly was characterized by many important new laws, among 
them the reform of the ballot by the Australian system for 
cities of 5,000 inhabitants and over, since extended to all 
precincts in the State. Mr. Clark was one of the ablest 
champions of the new system. He introduced and carried 



MEMBER OF GENERAL ASSEMBLY 71 

through the bill assessing express companies two per cent, 
of their gross earnings. The constitutionality of this law 
was tested and sustained in the courts. 

During the Thirty-fifth General Assembly a resolution 
was introduced and passed advocating the popular election 
of United States Senators, and Mr. Clark voted for it. The 
records of the other States are not at hand, but it is safe 
to say that Missouri was among the first, if not the very 
first, to go on record as favoring this reform, which has 
become almost universal. 

A large majority of the members of the Thirty-fifth 
General Assembly belonged to the legal profession. This 
Assembly was an able body of men. A number of its mem- 
bers have since served in Congress ; others have distin- 
guished themselves in various walks of life, while one com- 
mitted suicide and one was hanged for murder. Major 
John N. Edwards died during that winter while on a visit 
to the State Capital. One of Major Edwards' editorials, 
published in the Kansas City Times, February 26, 1889, 
a few weeks before his death, refers in these glowing terms 
to Champ Clark: 

"Representative Democrats from all parts of the State 
have just met in St. Louis to consider the ways and means 
of a practical and thorough reorganization of the party. 
Any political caucus or convention which the Hon. Champ 
Clark, of Pike County, presides over and addresses com- 
wiends itself at once not only to the confidence of but also 
to the active support of the entire Democracy of Missouri. 



72 CHAMP CLARK 

Young as he is, he is possessed of that kind of progressive 
ardor and all-pervading faith that removes mountains. 
In the Lares and Penates of his political household there 
are only the gods of his fathers." 

Mr. Clark knew less about parliamentary law in the 
Thirty-fifth Missouri General Assembly than he knows now 
in the Sixty-third Congress. That session of the Missouri 
Legislature was composed largely of lawyers, some of 
whom knew more parliamentary law than any other kind 
of law, and who delighted in the intricacies of the parlia- 
mentary game. Points of order and counter motions often 
arose to harass the House and to delay business. Mr. 
Clark offered a resolution one morning which provoked 
an onslaught from the parliamentary experts on the floor. 
Mr. Clark lost all patience when he discovered that the 
tactics were not of honest purpose. He arose and made 
a talk after this fashion: "Mr. Speaker, I don't know a 
thing about parliamentary law, and I don't care much 
about it. I know what I Avant in this resolution, and I 
know that it is right.'* There was applause and for a 
moment there was open rebellion against parliamentary 
finesse. The House adopted his resolution with entliusiasm 
and without further cross-firing. That incident shows 
the fundamental principle of Clark's character, the key- 
note of which is direct and unequivocal methods. 



CHAPTER VIII 

The Contests of Clark and Norton for Congress 

With his legislative honors thick upon him, Mr. Clark 
returned to his home in Pike County, at the close of the 
Thirty-fifth General Assembly, with the fully developed 
purpose of entering the race for Congress the following 
year. Richard H. Norton, then serving his first terra in 
Congress, was a native of the Pike County district, and 
had been educated in the St. Louis University and the 
Washington University at St. Louis. He was, therefore, 
a home product, a favorite son, and a very popular young 
man. According to Democratic usage, he was entitled to 
a second term. But Mr. Clark had witnessed the nomina- 
tion of Norton against Judge Elijah Robinson by the 
toss of a penny, and he had no consuming respect for a 
nomination so won. He had supported Norton upon that 
nomination and had made speeches for him, but he was not 
in sympathy with that kind of politics. Precedent had 
no power over him. He saw no reason for giving a man 
a second term when the first one was probably a mistake. 
These arguments were more often used by Clark's friends 
than by himself. He sought the nomination because he 
wanted it, and felt his ability to get it. He began early 
to organize for the nomination of his party, to be 
made in the summer of 1890. The campaign that he and 

73 



74 CHAMP CLARK 

Norton made during the summer became a political feud — 
a feud that reached to the boundaries of the State. Greek 
met Greek, and the tug of war was in the "Bloody Ninth." 
Judge Robinson did not re-enter the contest, which he 
might have done with the valid claims upon the support 
of the district; he stood aside for his young friend and 
supporter, Champ Clark. Everybody else also stood aside, 
while Clark and Norton fought it out. They struggled 
for the mastery in every county of the district. Toward 
the close of the race it developed that the contestants kad 
each won in half of the districts outside of Audrain 
County, which now became pivotal. The two newspapers 
at Mexico, in Audrain County, heretofore divided on all 
political issues, were now united for Norton. This coali- 
tion threw Clark into a disadvantage. The State Commit- 
tee, in the interest of party harmony, ordered a primary 
election in Audrain. Fortune still smiled on Norton and 
he carried the county by the slim margin of eighty-seven 
votes. That margin was enough to give him the nomina- 
tion for his second term, but was not enough to save him 
from a bitter contest and defeat at the next election. The 
"Bloody Ninth" knew by this time that Mr. Clark had 
the tenacity and fighting qualities of a bulldog, and that 
he was a young man of extraordinary qualities. Every- 
body knew beforehand that Mr. Clark would be up and 
at his antagonist again in 1892. That was a foregone 
conclusion. Mr. Clark never accepts defeat as anything 
but a temporary inconvenience to be overcome at the next 



I 



THE CONTESTS FOR CONGRESS 75 

opportunity. Defeat worked no malice in his soul. His 
motto in defeat is, "Pick your flint and try again." 

Mr. Clark returned to the practice of law, omitting no 
opportunity of getting himself before the public. He had 
then, as he has yet, the consummate skill of holding the 
respect and good-will of those opposed to him. Mr. Clark 
can rob his opponent of every advantage, of every inch of 
ground that he stands on, without creating bitter resent- 
ment. This faculty is the fruit of a broad, generous, and 
kindly nature. 

During the year 1891 Mr. Clark distinguished himself 
as a delegate in the Trans-Mississippi Congress, which met 
that year in Denver. ]\Ir. Clark is at home among West- 
em men. He loves the West as Benton loved it. He 
believes in the West as Benton believed in it, and he knows 
the West as Benton never knew it. The Trans-Mississippi 
Congress was then in its youth, but Mr. Clark saw the pos- 
sibilities of these annual gatherings of the wisest and best 
men of the great West. Mr. Clark's speech at Denver 
was concerning Western economics, his favorite subject. 

When the campaign of 1892 opened, Mr. Clark and 
Mr. Norton, like two gladiators, again came into the arena. 
The contest meant the political annihilation of Mr. Norton 
if he met defeat ; for such men as Clark defeat is not anni- 
hilation. The battle was Titanic. The contestants were 
so equally matched in the nominating convention that the 
whole situation devolved upon a single delegation, and a 
contest over that delegation divided the convention, as 



76 CHAMP CLARK 

was divided the Charleston National Convention in 1860. 
The Clark delegates and the Norton delegates separated 
and held two conventions, so that both men were nomi- 
nated. The State Committee again ordered a primary, 
in which Clark won by a decided and undisputed majority. 

Mr. Clark's election followed almost as a matter of 
course after his nomination. He has had no Democratic 
opponent since, but has received each recurring nomina- 
tion by acclamation. 

Clark thus describes his opponent: "Dick Norton, who 
defeated me once and whom I defeated once, is a fine law- 
yer and a very handsome man, just about my size and a . 
year older than I am. He is a splendid campaigner. 
When we fought each other for Congress in 1890 and 
1892 we were in our prime, and two men stronger physi- 
cally never contended with each other for Congress. 
Whenever he wants a certificate that he is tough game to 
go up against, I will cheerfully give it. I know by experi- 
ence that he is." 



CHAPTER IX 
His Tammany Hall Speech 

Mr. Clark's speeches seemed to travel on the wings of 
the morning long before he appeared in Congress. Men 
that heard him remembered and talked about his speeches 
long after the occasion of their delivery had been forgot- 
ten ; newspapers copied them from one another ; the patent 
insides of weeklies gave them extensive circulation to the 
remotest nooks and comers of rural communities ; while 
the metropolitan papers not only printed his speeches in 
their news columns, but also commented vigorously upon 
them editorially. A new voice is always hailed with de- 
light. Discriminating persons believed that they heard 
in Mr. Clark a new voice, and they vaguely guessed and 
hoped that what they heard would grow in volume until it 
should engage the attention of the whole country. 

Arriving in New York July 3, 1893, Mr. Clark went 
to an unpretentious hotel of his own selecting and repaired 
to his room; he threw off his coat and stretched himself 
upon the bed, with the manuscript of his speech in his 
hand. The speech had been written out with elaborate 
care. He was engaged in committing it to memory when 
two or three Tammanyites rapped on his door. They had 
been searching for him. He invited them to sit down while 
he read them his speech. At its conclusion they told him 

77 



78 CHAMP CLARK 

that what they wanted was one of his rousing Missouri 
speeches, the kind they sometimes read in the pubHc press, 
an extemporaneous, breezy speech, fresh from the West, 
wafting over the audience the perfume of the wild flowers 
of the prairies — limited to ten minutes. Mr. Clark threw 
the manuscript into his suitcase, and that speech has 
never yet been delivered, though he gave them the most 
striking passages of it from memory. He arose at once 
to accompany his visitors to better quarters, as their 
guest. 

Mr. Clark's speech was an astonishment to the New 
Yorkers, but they liked the orator from the West. His 
speech took in the whole field of national politics, and all 
subjects of current issue, and the greatness of Missouri. 
He captivated New York by his wit, his blunt statement 
of facts never before heard in Tammany Hall, his quaint, 
vigorous sentences, his side-splitting stories new to New j 
York, and by his prophetic analysis of the political situa- 1 
tion, soon after discovered to be all too true. This big, 
deep-voiced MIssourlan gave Tammany something to pon- 
der over for 3^ears after, and Tammany has not yet for- 
gotten Mr. Clark. 

An admirer of Mr. Clark wrote some years after the 
Tammany Hall speech: "Mr. Clark was not in New York 
to cater to New York tastes, nor there to pay homage to 
the powers of the metropolis, but to speak his thoughts 
and opinions in a style which amazed men accustomed to 
mildness and equivocation. Yet New York, who thought 



HIS TAMMANY HALL SPEECH 79 

herself amused because Clark tore away the veil that shaded 
the powers of the West from New York ejes, has since 
grasped the meaning of his words, and has looked where 
he bade her look. 

"New York's representatives in Congress have lived to 
respect and admire the Congressman whom they once re- 
garded as unique. Champ Clark the wit, at Tammany 
Hall, has since been supplanted by Champ Clark the stu- 
dent, the man of national affairs, the scholar, the man of 
letters. New York's first judgment of a coming man was 
faulty, but not for the first time in her history." 

In that speech Mr. Clark called upon the nation to look 
at "imperial Missouri," his own expression. He predicted 
that both he and his hearers would live to see the day when 
the American Democracy would move its capital to Mis- 
souri. From the day of that speech Mr. Clark has counted 
friends in New York by the hundreds. 

All the New York papers reported his speech either in 
full or by copious extracts, and all commented at length 
editorially upon the speaker and his address. The Nem 
York World headed its story of the Tammany celebration 
in big letters, "Hark to Champ Clark!" and then con- 
tinued : 

"Tammany Hall celebrated Independence Day with be- 
coming zeal and patriotism. A genuine Missouri Piker 
was with them to assist in doing honor to the glorious 
occasion, to himself, his fellow-Pikers, the State of Mis- 
souri, and the boundless and untrammeled West. It was 



80 CHAMP CLARK 

a great day for Tammany, and a truly memorable one for 
Pikers. 

"Congressman Champ Clark was the Piker. He made 
an undeniable hit. He was down on the Fourth of July 
progi*am for a short talk, but he made a long one. Pikers 
never make short talks. 

"Clark is a new Congressman. He comes from the town 
of Bowling Green, in Pike County, in his State. The Tam- 
many celebrants hailed the Congressional representative 
of the Pikers with enthusiasm and listened to him with 
astonishment and awe. 

"He told the braves that Missouri was the hope of De- 
mocracy, and of the country, and that in half a century 
it would be the center of civilization, of wealth, and of 
population. One astounded Tammany man managed to 
gasp, 'What's the matter with New York.f^' 

" 'Oh, I'll say something about New York in a minute,' 
said the Piker nonchalantly. 

"The Congressman is gray-haired, but young and 
active-looking. He is rather over middle height, sturdily 
built, and was well dressed in a gray suit. The coat was 
of the shad-belly cut. Champ Clark's face is clean-shaven. 
He used to have a mustache, but sacrificed it before com-^ 
ing to New York. The removal of his mustache has 
brought to view a firm upper lip and a generous mouth." 

After devoting four columns to Mr. Clark's speech and! 
some of his inimitable stories, with profuse illustrations! 



HIS TAMMANY HALL SPEECH 81 

(seven cuts with double-column picture of Clark on the 
front page) , the World said : 

"The brazen Vikings that stand at either end of the 
Tammany Hall stage wobbled on their pedestals as Champ 
Clark went to his seat. The Vikings had heard a good 
many speeches, but they were unaccustomed to the auda- 
cious oratory of a Piker. When the audience recovered its 
equanimity it applauded Congressman Clark. The other 
features of the celebration were tame compared with the 
outburst of Missouri's fiery son. 

"For many other reasons than Congressman Champ 
Clark's first appearance in New York, and the receipt of 
many letters of public interest, Tammany's one-hundred- 
and-seventeenth celebration was remarkable." 

When Mr. Clark arrived in Washington to take his seat 
at the extra session, wliich convened in August, 1893, his 
fame as an orator had preceded him. His Tammany Hall 
speech had not ceased to be a matter of discussion in the 
newspapers of the country. The older members of Con- 
gress were glad enough to welcome among them a young 
man of such promise, while' the new members, and these 
were many, were pleased to open their careers in company 
with such a brilliant beginner. All were anxious to hear 
Mr. Clark's first speech. Would he maintain himself at 
the standard, recognized as high, which he had set for 
himself July 4 in New York.'' The newspapers and the 
reading public were on the qui vive for his first great 
utterance. The country had not long to wait. 



82 CHAMP CLARK 

Richard Bland, "Silver Dick Bland," whose district lay 
alongside of INIr. Clark's, had been in Congress for twenty 
years, and was the leader there of the free silver forces, 
as he was the chief exponent of thought in the West, ano 
especially in Missouri. That INIr. Clark would stand 
valiantly with Mr. Bland had been definitely foreshadowed 
in all his campaign and other speeches up to the time that 
he came to Congress. His first speech was delivered on 
this subject August 19, 1893, within two weeks after 
Congress convened. The subject was not new to INIr. 
Clark, nor to the country. The Congressional Record of 
the extra session is a dreary waste of free silver speeches, 
made up sometimes of brain-racking and misleading statis- 
tics. Mr. Clark's speech is an oasis in a deseii;. 

Grover Cleveland had been returned to the presidency 
and with his return to the head of the government both 
the Senate and the House of Representatives had become 
Democratic. Charles F. Crisp was again chosen Speaker. 
On the floor of the House were many very strong men. 
Among Mr. Clark's colleagues of the Fifty-third Congress 
were William J. Bryan, W. Bourke Cockran, Charles H. 
Grosvenor, Sereno E. Payne, Tom L. Johnson, Joseph E. 
Sibley, Joseph W. Bailey, David B. Culberson, Amos J. 
Cummins, Thomas B. Reed, Nelson Dingley, Jr., William 
J. Springer, Joseph G. Cannon, William P. Hepburn, 
Jonathan P. Dolliver, and — Jerry Simpson. These are 
but a few of the very able members of the Fifty-third 
Congress. 



CHAPTER X 

Clark's Interkegnum 

Toward the close of the Fifty-third Congress Treloar, 
who had defeated Clark in the election of 1894, visited 
Washington. INIr. Clark, with characteristic urbanit}'^, met 
his successor and accompanied him through the Capitol, 
introducing him to governmental officials and Members of 
Congress. Mr. Treloar, now a resident of Kansas City, 
entertains warm personal feeling for Mr. Clark and speaks 
of him in terms of admiration. 

With two years of private life ahead of him Mr. Clark 
returned to his home in Bowling Green upon the dissolution 
of the Fifty-third Congress, JMarch 3, 1895. When King 
Pyrrhus was driven from Italy after the battle of Bcne- 
ventum, he exclaimed, "What a magnificent battlefield I 
leave for Rome and Carthage !" Mr, Clark might have 
exclaimed in paraphrase, "What a magnificent battlefield 
I leave for Congi'ess and President Cleveland!" Almost 
the entire Missouri delegation, heretofore Democratic, 
retired to private life. Even "Silver Dick" Bland Avent 
home for a rest of two years, yielding his seat as gi'ace- 
fully as possible to Dr. Hubbard. Judge Tarsney, of 
Kansas City, was unseated in a contest which gave his seat 
toward the close of the tenn to the veteran Republican, 

83 



84 CHAMP CLARK 

Col. R. T. Van Horn, leaving in the House only A. M. 
Dockerj, De Armond, Cobb, and U. S. Hall, to represent 
the erstwhile triumphant Democratic party of Missouri. 

Politically the Congress stood : Senate, 43 Republicans, 
39 Democrats, 6 Populists ; House, 248 Republicans, 104 
Democrats, 7 Populists, one vacancy. The House organ- 
ized by electing Thomas B. Reed, of Maine, as Speaker to 
succeed Charles F. Crisp. This was not Mr. Reed's first 
term as Speaker, nor was It his last. During this term, 
however, the rules of the House were changed for the pur- 
pose of giving the majority ahuost unobstructed power in 
the conduct of legislation. The Speaker was relieved from 
the ancient custom of regarding as present only those 
who answered to their names on roll-call. The new Reed 
rules empowered the Speaker to count as present those 
members brought In by the Sergeant-at-Arms, or other- 
wise known to be present, whether or not they saw fit to 
declare themselves present by response when their names 
were called. The rules were otherwise amended and 
changed from time to time in succeeding Congresses until 
the Democrats had ample ground for their contention, re- 
peatedly made, that the House had ceased to be a delibera- 
tive body. 

The Committee on Rules and Order of Business subse-'5 
quently became, under Speaker Cannon, and In his hands, 
the most powerful legislative tool ever wielded in a free 
country. Champ Clark was one of the most persistent 
and tireless advocates of a complete change of the rules. 



CLARK'S INTERREGNUM 85 

a reform destined to be brought about under his own 
leadership. The Fifty-fourth Congress was not especially 
notable. President Cleveland defended the Monroe Doc- 
trine in the Venezuelan Boundary Dispute with Great 
Britain. The Cuban InsuiTection, which had broken out 
in 1894, attracted attention throughout the country, as 
well as in both branches of Congress. The President dis- 
played his usual firmness in dealing with this subject, 
which, however, did not reach the acute stage until the 
Fifty-fifth Congress. 

Mr. Clark returned to his home and fine library. Bowl- 
ing Green has been the county-seat of Pike County since 
1823, and is near the center of the county, twelve miles 
from the Mississippi River. It is a typical Missouri 
inland town of about 3,000 happy, well-to-do and well- 
informed people. The town was founded in 1819, and was 
named for Bowling Green, Kentucky. In those territorial 
and pioneer days Pike County was the largest county in 
' the whole world, and was a paradise for Kentuckians ; 
it is yet paradisiacal to their descendants. Bowling Green 
is a monument in name to the loyalty of the Kentuckian 
■ to his native State, a monument of patriotism. Bowling 
, Green has two railroads, the Chicago and Alton and the 
St. Louis and Hannibal. It is the seat of Pike College, 
' and it also has a graded public school and a school for 
: colored children. It has a substantial court-house, six 
or eight churches, three banks, three hotels, flour-mill, brick 
and tile works, tobacco pipe factory and other manufac- 



86 CHAMP CLARK 

turing enterprises, two newspapers, and famous health- 
giving mineral springs nearby. Should it become the 
pleasant duty of Alton B. Parker to visit Clark at Bowl- 
ing Green, in return for Clark's visit to Esopus in 1904^, 
he will be delighted with the Arcadian scenery, with the 
town, and with the people. Should Judge Parker be 
chosen to notify Mr. Clark of his nomination for the presi- 
dency, he may expect to meet the largest part of the 
citizens of Pike County. These good people dropped in 
one at a time to condole with Mr. Clark in 1895 on the 
occasion of his retirement to private life; they will come 
en masse to congratulate him in 1912. On such an occa- 
sion Judge Parker and those accompanying him would be 
greeted with Missouri hospitality commingling with Ken- 
tucky chivalry. Mr. Clark would receive the notifying 
delegation in his modest home, "Honey Shuck," a typical 
home of the average American. 

Mr. Clark quietly resumed the practice of his profes- 
sion at Bowling Green in 1895. He threw his whole power ■ 
into every case. As a lawyer Mr. Clark never resorted to 
technicalities nor to questionable methods. He depended' 
upon a laborious preparation of his cases and upon a 
powerful presentation of the facts to the court and 
jury. During his two years of private life he was em- 
ployed as counsel in some very important cases, one of 
the most famous of which was the State of IMissouri vs. 
Dr. J. C. Hearne, charged with the murder of Amos Still- j 
well, of Hannibal, Mo. Mr. Clark added greatly to his' 



CLARK'S INTERREGNUM 87 

fame as a lawyer and as an advocate at the bar by his 
vigorous and able prosecution of this case. He was as con- 
scientious in the practice of law as he is clean in politics. 

During his enforced retirement from Congress Mr. Clark 
began his career as a lecturer, in which field he has been 
employed extensively ever since. During the time he was 
an ex-Member of Congress he delivered an address before 
the Trans-Mississippi Congress at its meeting in Denver. 
This Congress, which meets annually, is composed of the 
ablest and most progressive men of the West, who discuss 
economic subjects of peculiar interest to that section of 
our common country, such as irrigation, conservation, 
transportation, freight rates, mining, agriculture, horti- 
culture, Panama Canal, etc. 

Mr. Clark believes in the West as Benton believed in it 
and as Daniel Webster did not believe in it. Benton, in 
one of his great Missouri speeches, pointed to the West 
and said, "There is the East." Mr. Clark has advocated 
and defended the West on the floor of the House as ably 
and as valiantly as Benton did in the Senate two-thirds 
of a century ago. Mr. Clark's speech in Denver was 
Bentonian in scope, logic, and eloquence. 

During Mr. Clark's interregnum he made many ad- 
dresses on various occasions, being extensively in demand 
wherever meetings of any kind were held. Although in re- 
tirement he was constantly conspicuous in the public eye. 
In his subconsciousness he knew that his public career 
would presently be resumed. 



88 CHAMP CLARK 

The Democratic national convention met in Chicago 
July 7, 1896, and adopted a free silver coinage platform, 
with W. J. Bryan at the head of the ticket. The Populist 
party in convention assembled endorsed Mr. Bryan. 
Palmer and Buckner were made the leaders of the "Na- 
tional Democratic Party." The Republicans nominated 
]Mr. McKinley for President, and elected him on a plat- 
form that declared for a protective tariff and against free 
coinage, except by international agreement. 

The campaign that ensued upon these nominations was 
noted for widespread discussion of the money question. 
The Democrats, led by Mr. Bryan, contended that pros- 
perity could not return until a larger volume of money was 
provided for the use of the country. They contended 
that the free and unlimited coinage of silver was the 
remedy for the deficient currency. The economic sound- 
ness of this contention has been fairly established by the 
return of prosp'jrity simultaneously with the increase of 
the volume of money from twenty dollars to thirty-four 
dollars per capita, as the result of the fortuitous gold dis- 
coveries in various parts of the world since 1896. 

The Bryan campaign of 1896 revived Democratic en- 
thusiasm, especially in the West, where the free silver 
argument prevailed to the practical exclusion of every 
other issue. Mr. Clark made a splendid canvass of his 
district and was triumphantly elected. Mr. Treloar was 
his Republican opponent. 

Mr. Clark has been returned to Congress at every 



CLARK'S INTERREGNUM 89 

recurring election since 1896. The history of his long 
service in Congress would be a fair outline history of the 
country for that period in all its relations, domestic and 
foreign. 



CHAPTER XI 

Champ Clark in the Fifty-fifth Congress 

When Mr. Clark took his seat in the Fifty-fifth Con- 
gress he found that the ever-shifting tides in the political 
affairs of men had changed every department of the gov- 
ernment. The House which he had known in the Fifty- 
third Congress, presided over by Charles F. Crisp, was 
overwhelmingly Democratic. The Fifty-fifth Congress 
was equally overwhelmingly Republican. The House was 
presided over by Thomas B. Reed. In the House there 
were 206 Republicans and 134 Democrats. Instead of the 
robust, pugnacious Cleveland, quick to defend the Monroe 
Doctrine, in perfect harmony with his party as to theJ 
impending Cuban troubles, the gentle, uncombativd 
McKinley held the presidency. The only feature to remind! 
him of his first term was the strong silver sentiment In the! 
Senate, but the Senate was Republican, in unison with the 
Republican sentiment of the Government. 

Although the paramount Issue of the campaign of 1896 
was free coinage of silver, under the leadership of W. J. 
Bryan, the new President conceived that his special mis- 
sion was to replace the Wilson tariff measure with the old 
McKinley bill or some other protective measure. Accord- 
ingly he convened Congress In extraordinary session 
March 15, 1897. 

90 



IN THE FIFTY-FIFTH CONGRESS 91 

Mr. Clark thus began both his first and second terms in 
special session, the first, under Cleveland, to consider the 
money question, the second, under McKinley, to consider 
the tariff. Mr. Clark was a conspicuous force in the con- 
sideration of both subjects. 

The Dingley tariff bill was promptly introduced and 
promptly enacted into law. This Dingley law continued 
in force and effect until superseded by the Payne-Aldrich 
tariff measure — the longest life of any tariff law in the 
history of the country. 

Speaker Reed, the very prince of the Republican party, 
thought to put a quietus on the prince of Democrats, and 
so remove as far as possible an arch-enemy to his policies, 
by appointing Mr. Clark to membership on the Committee 
on Foreign Relations. That appointment was water on 
Clark's wheel ; the mill of the gods began at once to grind. 
The war with Spain could not be averted, although the 
President was loath to plunge the country into hostilities. 
Public sentiment demanded a correction of the intolerable 
condition prevailing in Cuba. Mr. Clark was the head 
and front of the war movement in Congress. The pressure 
on the administration became irresistible. After war was 
declared Mr. Clark said in his picturesque, sarcastic, and 
tantalizing manner that the Democratic party in Congress, 
though in the minority, "took the administration by the 
scruff of the neck and threw it into the war with Spain." 

Questions of foreign policy pressed rapidly to the front. 
The war revenue act, the Hawaiian annexation, the Philip- 



92 CHAMP CLARK 

pine Islands situation, and our colonial policy, with its 
long train of debates in Congress, gave Clark innumerable 
opportunities to exercise his talents as an orator, as a 
ready and forceful debater, and as a statesman of the first 
order. One of his speeches on the Cuban situation was 
translated into the foreign languages and published all 
over Europe — a rare distinction. The speech of Mr. Hitt 
was likewise translated and published in Europe alongside 
of Mr. Clark's, the two speeches being recognized the world 
over as setting forth the two American views of the war 
with Spain, the Democratic and Republican views. 

Mr. Clark has steadily gained in popular esteem by his 
untiring zeal and his great ability in shaping legislation 
on all matters coming before Congress. 



CHAPTER XII 

Clark, the Epoch-Makee 

The overthrow of Cannonism, so-called, was the consum- 
mation of one of Clark's most ardent purposes, wherein he 
served his country and his party. The change of the rules 
of the House under the leadership of Clark marks the final 
transition of legislative methods from the Hamil- 
tonian zone of centralized power back to the realm 
of Jeffersonian freedom and self-government. Thought- 
less persons have said that there is little difference be- 
tween the two old parties, but never again can that be said 
by any one who contemplates the vast gulf that separates 
the rules of the Republican party from the rules of the 
Democratic party on the floor of Congress. Under the 
old Republican rules representative government and free 
speech had been destroyed at the national capital; under 
the new Democratic miles the nation again finds its voice 
in giving shape and potency to legislation. 

Years ago, and almost alone, Mr. Clark entered the lists 
against the interests, which had become well entrenched 
behind the rules of the House. In the final scenes of the 
great conflict he was supported by able lieutenants on the 
floor of the House, who acted under his leadership and 
were animated by his zeal and inspiration. 

93 



94 CHAMP CLARK 

The system of legislative repression known as Cannon- 
ism, named for Speaker Cannon, though he did not origi- 
nate it, began its development under Speaker Reed in the 
Fifty-first Congress. In that Congress the Democratic 
minority engaged in a relentless parliamentary warfare 
against the arrogant Republican majority. One of the 
Democratic maneuvers was to refrain from answering on 
roll-call, thus often breaking a quorum and so defeating 
obnoxious legislation. The Republican leaders determined 
to rid themselves of the annoyance of maintaining a 
quorum of their followers. A revolutionary change of 
rules was Instituted, whereby the Speaker might count and 
record as present any member seen to be on the floor or 
known to be near. From time to time new and extraordi- 
nary powers were given Into the hands of the Speaker, 
until the system of Republican concentration reached its 
most dangerous and pernicious extreme under Speaker 
Cannon, a very gentle and likeable man, but one who 
exercised all the power conferred by the rules. The whole 
system may be fairly understood by the unconscionable 
way in which the Payne-Aldrich tariff bill passed the 
House. That bill came ready-made from the Ways and 
Means Committee. The bill was deemed perfect by Its 
sponsors, who did not care to have their plans and 
schemes jeopardized by Democratic amendments, which 
were accordingly ruled out. The bill was machine-made, 
and It passed the House by machine methods. 

Mr. Cannon defended this system of legislation by de- 



CLARK, THE EPOCH-MAKER 95 

daring that "ours is a government by majorities." Those 
who endorsed and maintained this doctrine held that the 
Republican party was charged with the full responsibility 
of legislation, and therefore the duty of settling the fate 
of all measures in the councils of the party (the caucus) 
was clearly imperative. 

The sources of power in the Speaker's hands were his 
undisputed right to name all committees, and his further 
uncontested discretion in recognizing members on the floor 
of the House. He was chairman of the Committee on 
Rules and was virtually the whole committee, as he ap- 
pointed the other four members — two Democrats and two 
Republicans. The Committee on Rules could report a 
new rule at any time, which the Republican House adopted, 
automatically. The Speaker had the appointing of all 
employees about the House. At no time in the history 
of our country have the advocates of a centralized govern- 
ment so nearly approached their ideal as they did under 
Speaker Cannon. The weakness of the system consisted in 
it's very strength. The majority of the Republican party 
controlled and shaped all legislation, heedless of the Re- 
publican minority, which finally rebelled against the over- 
weening and arrogant majority. As a matter of practical 
government, Mr. Cannon's theory was erroneous. The rule 
of the majority as construed by him and his associates was 
the rule of the majority of the Republican party, in reality 
a minority in the House. 

The fortuitous advancement of Mr. Clark through com- 



96 CHAMP CLARK 

mittee services up to the minority leadership on the Ways 
and Means Committee, where he was in a position to 
combat and overthrow Cannonism, is a most remarkable 
chapter in the history of Congress. 

In the Fifty-fifth Congress Mr. Speaker Reed gave Mr. 
Clark a place on the Committee of Foreign Relations. 
Immediately afterward the war with Spain was forced upon 
the unwilling McKinley administration. Mr. Clark dis- 
played such remarkable powers of statesmanship on this 
committee that his colleagues unanimously selected him to 
be Minority Leader when John Sharp Williams left the 
House for the Senate. His minority leadership sounded 
the knell to Cannonism. 

In 1909 it was foreseen that the Democrats would in all 
probability win tlie House at the next election. This 
would make Mr. Clark Speaker. Three prominent Repub- 
lican "insurgents" called on Mr. Clark and laid before him 
a most astonishing proposition. They desired to join 
forces witli the Democrats for the overthrow of the Cannon 
rules. Mr. Clark readily agreed to such a coalition of 
forces, although a change of the rules would take from ^ 
him the power exercised by the Speaker when he should 
come to that office. 

This agreement of Mr. Clark and the leading "Insurg- 
ents" was only the first alignment of the forces In a great 
battle. Mr. Clark discovered that many of his own party 
were now in favor of enduring the Cannon rules through 
the extra session, so that revenge might be taken after the 



CLARK, THE EPOCH-MAKER 97 

next election. The Democrats met In caucus, but they had 
been so long in the minority, where each was a sort of a 
free lance, that no sort of party discipline remained. The 
caucus meeting, called to consider the "insurgent" proposi- 
tion made to ]Mr. Clark, M'as utterly devoid of all unity 
of purpose or of action. Heretofore they had not had 
a leader, nor had they needed one. Mr. Clark's superla- 
tive qualities as a leader now became evident. When he 
perceived that disunion and disintegration impended, he 
diplomatically secured an adjournment. Three times was 
it found necessary to adjourn the Democratic caucus 
without action in order to prevent an utter disruption of 
the Democratic party in Congress. But Mr. Clark saw 
that patience would win, and he was patient. Finally the 
right moment arrived in the caucus. Mr. Clark made the 
greatest speech of his life, pronounced n by able critics 
who were present. The result of Mr. Clark's effort was 
a compact Democratic phalanx. As one member expressed 
it, "Every Democrat toed the mark that night and every 
one has toed it ever since" — a most wonderful tribute to 
Clark's leadership. 

At no period of Mr. Clark's career has he displayed such 
remarkable prowess, such mastery over his colleagues as in 
this caucus meeting. 

Mr. Borland, of Missouri, thus described the final scene 
of the great drama: 

"When I entered the Sixty-first Congress the Demo^ 
cratic minonty leader was a battle-scarred veteran from 



98 CHAMP CLARK 

my own State of Missouri. The Democrats had been in 
the minority so long that they had fallen into a discour- 
aged state — every Democrat looked only to the interest 
of himself and of his own district. They indulged in a 
sort of guerilla warfare against the intrenched Repub- 
lican majority. Every Democrat fired from behind the , 
nearest tree or bush, without harmony or concerted action 
or organized plan of attack. With the new leadership • 
came the magnetism which a successful commander infuses j 
into disorganized troops. The first declaration I ever 

heard the floor leader make was that the time had come for j 

1 

Democracy to have a policy of constructive statesman- i 
ship. 

"Tlie first test of strength came in March, 1909, at j 
the special session of the Republican Congress, presided | 
over by Uncle Joe Cannon. A change was proposed to 'j 
liberalize the rules, and to restore representative govern- 
ment to the American people. A large number of 'insur- ; 
gent' Republicans were in favor of the reform. It was ' 
brought up hurriedly on the very first day of the session, 
when the Democrats had no fair opportunity to caucus ji 
upon it, and the result was that while we gained a few 
'insurgent' votes from the Republicans, we lost an equal 
number of Democratic votes, and were thrown into help- 
less rout by the organized forces of Cannon. Now mark 
the change! One year later, in March, 1910, another 
battle occurred over a reform in the rules. This time the 
Democrats were well organized and harmonious, and had 



\ 



CLARK, THE EPOCH-MAKER 99 

for their allies enough 'insurgent' votes to overthrow the 
Republican majority of the House. For three days and 
three nights the House was in almost continuous session. 
"The country witnessed the unique case in American 
political history of a great national party, with an elected 
majority in both Houses of Congress, backed by the whole 
power of the administration, filibustering against a Demo- 
cratic minority, backed by an aroused public opinion. 
When the third day came and roll-call after roll-call had 
failed to shake the forces of the allies, the final test of 
strength came. As Uncle Joe Cannon looked down from 
his place on the Speaker's rostrum and saw that his forces 
[were being routed, as name after name was called and 
every Democrat was in line and every 'insurgent' remained 
firm to his convictions, he saw that the Old Guard was 
facing its Waterloo. As his glance wandered half way 
up the aisle of the Democratic side of the House it must 
have rested upon the strong face and shaggy head of the 
Old Lion of the Democracy, the leader of the Democratic 
i minority. Then he knew that the Republican power had 
met its match at last and that match was the present 
Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Hon. Champ 
Clark, of Missouri." 

I When the Congressional campaign of 1910 opened, the 
•issue dividing the two parties was Cannonism and antl- 
Cannonism, with the Payne- Aldrich tariff bill as a con- 
spicuous object lesson. In every Congressional district 
iof the nation the orators of both parties emphasized the 



100 CHAMP CLARK 

fact that if the Republicans won, Mr. Cannon would con- 
tinue to be Speaker; but if the Democrats won, Mr. Clark 
would be Speaker. The issue was favorable to Mr. Clark, 
who is the first Speaker ever endorsed by a popular elec- 
tion. 

Mr. Clark was chosen Speaker of the Sixty-second Con- 
gress by the unanimous choice of his colleagues in 
Congress. He is the only Democratic Speaker ever unani- 
mously nominated for his first term in the Speakership. 

[Address of the Speaker-Elect 
(April 4, 1911) 

The Speaker-Elect — Gentlemen of the House of Repre- 
sentatives : Election to the high position of Speaker is 
an exceptional honor, for which you have my profoundest 
gratitude. To be a Member of the House, to represent 
two hundred thousand American citizens in the more nu- 
merous branch of the greatest legislative body on earth, 
is a distinction to which, in the nature of things, compara- 
tively few men may attain. To be chosen by the 
Representatives of 93,000,000 people to preside over 
your deliberations is a signal mark of your favor, for 
which the best return is to discharge the onerous and im- 
portant duties of the station to which you have assigned 
me with such impartiality, constancy, industry, courtesy, 



CLARK, THE EPOCH-MAKER 101 

and good temper as to expedite the public business, thereby 
promoting the public weal. 

The pleasure of being elected Speaker is much enhanced 
by the perfect unanimity with which it is conferred by my 
party fellows and the universal good-will with which it is 
accepted by our co-laborers of the minority. [Applause.] 
Coming into the Speakership under these fortunate cir- 
cumstances, the hearty co-operation of all Members of 
whatever political persuasion is hereby earnestly invoked in 
maintaining order and decorum and in placing upon the 
statute books laws for the good of the country and the 

i whole country, working out promptly, patiently, courag- 
eously, wisely, and patriotically those measures necessary 
for the betterment of governmental methods and for the 

; amelioration of the conditions under which we live. 

1 [Applause.] 

My Democratic brethren, coupled with the joy of once 
more seeing a House a large majority of which is of my 
own political faith, is a keen sense of our responsibility to 

I our country and our kind. It. iajia_ald adage worthy of 

f accep^aUon that where much is given much is required. 

\ After sixteen years of exclusion from power in the House 

• and fourteen years of exclusion from power in every 
department of government, we are restored to power in the 
House of Representatives and in that alone. We are this 
day put upon trial, and the duty devolves upon us to 
demonstrate, not so much by fine phrases as by good works, 
that we are worthy of the confidence imposed in us by the 



102 CHAMP CLARK 

voters of the land, and that we are also worthy of their 
wider confidence. [Applause on the Democratic side.] 
We could not if we would, and we would not if we could, 
escape this severe test. We will not shirk our duty. We 
shrink not from the responsibility. That we will prove 
equal to the situation in which we find ourselves placed 
through our own efforts and by our own desires there 
can be no doubt, and the way to accomplish that is to 
fulfil with courage, intelligence, and patriotism the prom- 
ises made before election in order to win the election. [Ap- 
plause on the Democratic side.] By discharging our 
duty thoroughly and well, subordinating personal desires 
to principle and personal ambition to an exalted love of 
country, we will not only receive the endorsement of the 
people, but, what is far better, we will deserve their 
endorsement. 

Chief among these promises were: 

1. An honest, intelligent revision of the tariff downward, 
in order to give every American citizen an equal chance in 
the race of life, and to pamper none by special favor or 
special privilege ; to reduce the cost of living by eradicat- 
ing the enormities and cruelties of the present tariff bill; 
and to raise the necessary revenue to support the govern- 
ment. Bills are already far advanced in preparation look- 
ing to the accomplishment of these beneficent ends. [Ap- 
plause on the Democratic side.] 

2. The passage of a resolution submitting to the States 
for ratification a constitutional amendment providing for 



CLARK, THE EPOCH-MAKER 103 

the election of United States Senators by the popular vote. 
This resolution has already been introduced and will soon 
be passed by the House. Let us hope that we will send 
it to the Senate by the unanimous vote of the House, 
thereby giving to our action the maximum of force. [Ap- 
plause.] 

3. Such changes in the rules of the House as are neces- 
sary for the thorough and intelligent consideration of 
measures for the public good, several of which changes 
are accomplished facts ; if other changes are deemed wise, 
they will be promptly made. 

I congratulate the House and the country, and particu- 
larly do I congratulate the members of the Committee 
on Ways and Means, upon the success of the important 
and far-reaching experiment of selecting committees 
through the instrumentality of a committee, an experi- 
ment toucliing which dire predictions were made and con- 
cerning the operation of which grave doubts were enter- 
tained, even by some honest reformers. 

4. "Economy in the public expense that labor may be 
lightly burdened." The literal fulfilment of that promise, 
which so nearly affects the comfort and happiness of mil- 
lions, we have begun — and we began at the proper place — 
by cutting down the running expenses of the House by 
more than $188,000 per annum. Economy, like charity, 
should begin at home. That is where we began. We cannot 
with straight faces and clear consciences reform expenses 
elsewhere unless we reform them here at the fountain head. 



104 CHAMP CLARK 

The Democratic caucus deserves well of the country for 
taking this long and important step in the direction of 
economy all along the line. 

The Constitution gives the House the practical control 
of the purse strings of the country, and the House should 
insist, resolutely and firmly, on exercising that control to 
the end that the appropriation bills may be reduced to the 
needs of the government economicall}'^ and effectively ad- 
ministered. It is our duty to provide every dollar needed 
for the proper and economical conduct of the government, 
but it is equally our duty to prevent waste and extrava- 
gance in public expenditures, for we should never forget 
that it is a difficult task for millions of families to live 
now in decency and comfort. Surely it is the part of wis- 
dom, statesmanship, humanltarlanism, and patriotism to 
legislate so as to reduce their burdens to the minimum. 
The resuscitation of the Holman rule will help along in 
this matter. No good citizen desires to cripple the govern- 
ment in any legitimate function, but no good citizen desires 
that the people be loaded down with unnecessary taxes. 

5. The publication of campaign contributions and dis- 
bursements before the election. The bill to accomplish 
that desired reform has been prepared and Introduced. It 
will be speedily passed by the House. The average citizen, 
whatever his politics. Is absolutely honest. He demands 
honesty and cleanliness in politics ; he believes that too 
much money is spent in election matters ; and he proposes 
to put an end to It. As the representatives of the average 



CLARK, THE EPOCH-MAKER 105 

man, it Is our duty to carry out his patriotic wishes in that 
regard to the end that all men desirous of serving the 
public may have a fair chance in politics, and to the end 
that this puissant Republic, the political hope of the 
world, may not be destroyed by conniption in elections. 

6. The admission of both Arizona and New Mexico as 
States. [Applause.] I violate no confidence in stating 
that so far as the House is concerned, they will be speedily 
admitted and they will be admitted together. [Applause.] 

These are a few of the things which we promised. We 
are not only going to accomplish them, we have already 
begun the great task. What we have done is only an 
earnest of what we will do. We this day report progress 
to the American people. The rest will follow in due course. 

No man is fit to be a lawgiver for a mighty people who 

II yields to the demands and solicitations of the few having 

access to his ear, but is forgetful of that vast multitude 

1 who may never hear his voice nor look into his face. 

\ [Applause.] 

I suggest to my fellow-members on both sides of the big 
aisle — which is the line of demarcation betwixt us as politi- 
cal partisans, but not as American citizens or American 
Representatives — that he serves his party best who serves 
his country best. [Applause.] 

I am now ready to take the oath, and ask that it be ad- 
ministered by Mr. Talbott, of Maryland. 

The oath of office was administered to the Speaker by 
i) Mr. Talbott, of Maryland. 



106 CHAMP CLARK 

Mr. Clark's election was the final and irretrievable over- 
throw of Cannonism. Let us hope that centralization has 
gone forever from our government. 

As Mr. Clark and every one else foresaw, the change of 
the rules deprives him of vast power. Under the new regime 
the House elects its committees, instead of empowering the 
Speaker to appoint them. The power of recognition is 
also regulated by rules prescribed by the House for its 
own government. 

Just as our forefathers wrote the Constitution of the 
United States with a view of connecting the conspicuous 
evils of the British government, so the House of Repre- 
sentatives, guiding its feet by the lamp of experience, has 
gone far away from the evils of Cannonism. 

Notwithstanding the great reduction of power of the 
Speakership, Speaker Clark yet possesses as much 
authority as should be exercised by any one man over the 
actions of others in a free government. The fairness with 
which he discharges the duties of his office has not been 
questioned by any member of Congress. 



CHAPTER XIII 

His Friendships 

The most disinterested and the most fortunate friend- 
ship that Mr. Clark ever made had Its Inception in the 
Ways and Means Committee. When Mr. Clark became a 
member of this committee Senator John Shai-p Williams, 
of Mississippi, was the Democratic spokesman on the 
Ways and Means Committee, and by virtue of the pre- 
eminence was Minority Leader on the floor of the House. 
Mr. Williams looked to Mr. Clark as his first lieutenant 
in the consideration of all tariff measures, and in all party 
contests on the floor of the House. Nature conferred on 
Mr. Clark remarkable aptitude In the mastery of economic 
subjects, an instinct for the comprehension of laws of 
trade and commerce. Hence the consideration of tariff 
legislation Is a congenial occupation for him. He and Mr. 
Williams agreed upon every essential feature of tariff 
legislation, and upon the modus operandi of conducting 
maneuvers on the floor of the House. Seldom have two 
men In Congress possessed such unity of purposes and con- 
victions. Together they laid out their lines of battle and 
marshalled their forces, and fought together every contest 
for popular rights. They became close personal friends. 

When Mr. Williams left the House to take his seat In 

107 



108 CHAMP CLARK 

the American "House of Lords," there was but one man 
perfectly fitted by nature and by training to succeed 
him as Minority Leader, and that man was Champ Clark. 
Mr. Williams made the noblest speech of his life when he 
stood up in the Democratic caucus and presented in glow- 
ing terms of eulogy his friend and successor, Mr. Clark. 
It Mas an act of friendship, born of patriotism no less 
than of personal affection and regard. The speech could 
not have been stronger had Mr. Williams known that he 
was sending his friend on the way to the White House. 
In the light of history the scene was dramatic. Mr. Wil- 
liams stepped out of the path leading to the nation's 
highest honor and gave the roadway to Mr. Clark. 

The speech made by Mr. Clark on that dramatic occa- 
sion is published elsewhere in this volume. Mr. Clark had 
already eulogized Mr. Williams on the floor of the House, 
in a speech which reveals the human kindness in Mr. Clark's 
nature. In the light of history that speech is also highly 
dramatic. The occasion was the presentation of a loving 
cup to Mr. Williams by the Democrats of the Fifty-eighth 
Congress. In the same speech Mr. Clark's magnanimity 
was emphasized by his eulogistic remarks about Speaker 
Cannon. The cup was presented to Mr. Williams March 4, 
1905. Mr. Clark said: 

"We give it to him because of his great capacity, which 
all men admire ; because of his courage, characteristic of 
his race ; because of his tact, which has served us and the 
country well ; because of his scholarship, which delights all 



HIS FRIENDSHIPS 109 

who hear him ; and above all, greater than all, becaiase of 
our great personal affection for him. . . 

"We have in our midst two fine samples of the Vell- 
bcloved' in the persons of John Sharp Williams, of Mis- 
sissippi, and of Joseph G. Cannon, of Illinois. In fact, 
both of them run the risk of having applied to them the 
Scriptural warning, 'Woe unto you when all men speak 
well of jou.' 

"The historians of our times will record the fact that 
the Fifty-eighth Congress was celebrated above all its 
predecessors for the extraordinary kindliness of feeling 
which prevailed among its members. . . . This 
happy state of affairs is due largely to the unfailing kind- 
ness of 'Uncle Joe' and of John Sharp Williams, and to 
the genial humor with which they have enlivened the pro- 
ceedings of the House. 

"When at last the inevitable turn in the Congressional 
lane comes and John Sharp Williams ascends the Speaker's 
stand to wield the gavel, Mr. Speaker Cannon, with the 
gallantry of Marshal Ney, will descend to be the floor 
leader of the thin line of the Republican minority, and 
will fight every inch of ground with the stubborn courage 
of the English squares at Waterloo. 

"May happiness, prosperity, and length of days be the 
portion of these two conspicuous gentlemen — in fact, of 
us all." 

Mr. Cannon was reduced to the ranks as predicted by 
Mr. Clark, but Mr. Clark himself succeeded Mr. Cannon. 



110 CHAMP CLARK 

On Mr. Clark's birthday, March 7, 1912, Mr. Cannon 
stood up in his place on the floor of the House and returned 
the compliment, saying among other things: 

"While we have had sharp contests in the past and In 
the present, and no doubt will have in the future, I am 
glad to say, after many years of service, that while the 
present Speaker has always been a virile partisan, recog- 
nizing that it is a government speaking tlirough majori- 
ties, and while as a former Speaker of the House and on the 
floor I have had sharp contests with him and at times felt 
his opposition keenly, yet I must say, and take pleasure in 
saying at this time, that he has made manly contests, 
striking above the belt. . . . The present Speaker is 
a prospective candidate for that great office of President. 
You will not consult me in the Baltimore Convention, but 
I am quite sure that it would be agreeable to this side of 
the House If you should nominate your colleague and our 
colleague, the present Speaker, as your standard-bearer. 
For your policies I can think of no one that would be more 
forceful, and in nominating and electing to that great 
office the present Speaker, I think there Is no man witliln 
the sound of my voice but that would feel that he would be 
persona grata If he desired a hearing touching the public 
business so far as It was within his power. 

"We congratulate our friends from time to time on the 
anniversary of their birth, but I sometimes wonder whether 
it is a subject for congratulation that another mile-stone 
is behind us. Yet it Is always agreeable to congratulate 



HIS FRIENDSHIPS 111 

and to be congratulated; and as we cannot turn back the 
hands upon the dial, I will express the wish and the hope 
that the Speaker's birthday anniversary may reach the 
hundredth anniversary, and that I may be there to see it." 

I\Ir. Clark has an extraordinary and phenomenal ca- 
pacity for friendship. He is a philanthropist and is so 
recognized and accepted by all men. His power of bind- 
ing friends to him by hoops of steel is innate and is not 
the outgrowth of the necessity of the life and pursuits of 
a public career. He made friends while he was yet a child 
on the farm, and in school, as a teacher, as a student in 
college, and in the law school, as college president, as a 
neighbor at Bowling Green, as a newspaper man, as prose- 
cuting attorney of Pike Count}', as a lawmaker in the 
Missouri Legislature, as a candidate for Congress in a 
bitter contest, and as a member of Congress. Perhaps no 
man in public life has ever enjoyed a larger number of 
personal friends than has Mr. Clark throughout a busy and 
a varied life. 

A beautiful friendship exists between Mr. Clark and his 
colleague. Representative Bartholdt, of St. Louis. Mr. 
Bartholdt is as strong and as uncompromising a Repub- 
lican as i\Ir. Clark is a Democrat. Party rivalry between 
these two men is acute, but nothing of a partisan nature 
can interi'upt their friendship nor disrupt their attachment 
to each other. On the eve of the presidential election, 
when the leaders are addressing themselves to the heavy 
task of promoting their favorites, Mr. Bartholdt, avowedly 



112 CHAMP CLARK 

and enthusiastically for the re-election of President Taft, 
bears this testimony to Mr. Clark's character: 

"Taft and Clark — these will be the opposing nominees 
of the election campaign to follow the conventions ; and if 
they are, it will be a campaign between gentlemen — a battle 
for principles. There will be no injections of personalities. 
Both men are my warm friends, and I would say on the 
stump in Missouri or elsewhere that there is no purer, 
cleaner man in public life to-day than Speaker Champ 
Clark. He is as innocent as a child and as pure as a 
diamond." 

Another friendship was that between Clark and heroic 
De Armond. The greatest possible contrast prevailed be- 
tween these two statesmen. Clark struck with a bludgeon 
which never produced a mortal hurt; De Armond wielded 
a Toledo blade that excited anger. Clark was welcomed 
cheerily into the arena even by those who knew that they 
must suffer by his presence; De Armond acted as an irri- 
tant. These two Missourians fought many hard battles 
against the enemies of the Democratic party. 

The long and unbroken friendship between Champ 
Clark and David A. Ball recalls the famous friendships of 
history: David and Jonathan, Tennyson and Hallam, Mil- 
ton and Lycidas (King), Hume and Robertson, Boccaccio 
and Petrarch, Reynolds and Burke, Johnson and Gold- 
smith, Beaumont and Fletcher, Erasmus and Sir Thomas 
More, Montaigne and Charron, Lloyd and Churchill. 

When Clark came to Pike County, without friends or 



HIS FRIENDSHIPS 113 

means, he soon met "Dave" Ball, then a young man at 
!the threshold of liis career. The two men presently be- 
jicame fast friends. Mr. Ball had been admitted to the 
.bar a year or two previously and his practice was small, 
jtoo small to divide with another; yet he took the briefless 
Clark into full partnership. For some long time "It was 
slim picking," as Mr. Clark has said. Both were big- 
hearted and generous and both were ambitious and full 
of hope. Every big battle that either has ever fought 
has been the battle likewise of the other. For nearly forty 
years they have been loyal to each other. Defeat has 
sometimes perched on the banner of each, but the clouds 
of adversity have not obscured the light of friendship. 
When Ball ran for the office of prosecuting attorney 
or for the State Senate, Clark helped him to win. When 

I jBall aspired to be Lieutenant Governor Clark made one 
'of the great speeches of his life in the State Convention 

: i which uproariously gave Ball the coveted nomination, 
f yhich was followed by success at the polls. And when Ball 
aspired to be Governor of the State in 1908 Clark an- 
il inounced that he would rather see his friend in the Gov- 
,) :emor's office than to \vin for himself a seat in the United 

II [States Senate. On the other hand when Clark ran for 
ti lany office, whether he wished to be prosecuting attorney, 
1) jState Legislator, or Congressman, Mr. Ball has used every 
i. ieffort to win for Clark, and has been unstinted of his 

means. The friendship of these two men for each other 
ihas become proverbial in the political annals of Missouri — 



114 CHAMP CLARK 

a friendship as romantic as that of Damon and Pythias i 
and as poetic as that of Antonio and Bassanio. Eachl 
might have said of the other what was said of Portia : 

"The dearest friend to me, the kindest man, 

"The best-conditioned and unwearied spirit 

"In doing courtesies, and one in whom j 

"The ancient Roman honor more appears ] 

"Than any that draws breath in Italy." 

They both are acquainted with hard luck. The two men 
are alike in continuity of purpose. They are also alike in , 
uprightness of purpose, in optimism, and in their political I 
afRHations and convictions. In one other respect they 
resemble each other like t^ans. They draw humor from I 
the same reservoir and dispense it in speeches with the same 
unctious prodigality. They borrow jokes from each other. 
Otherwise the two men are diametrically opposite to each i 
other. Clark is large and of bone and muscle; Ball is 
small in size. Both have great ambitions along parallel, 
but not conflicting, lines. They were drawn together by 
unity of purposes and ideals. They fought each other 
when professional employment set them against each i 
other. Perhaps their very friendship gave a zest and I 
a keener edge to their rivalry when on opposite sides of 
a case, as not infrequently happened. The most notable 
trial wherein they were on opposing sides was the State of 
Missouri vs. Hearne. This was a famous case and has 
few parallels in the history of criminal jurisprudence of 
the nation. Dr. J. C. Hearne was charged with the mur- 



HIS FRIENDSHIPS 115 

der of Amos Stillwell, of Hannibal, Mo. Mr. Ball, who 
kvas Lieutenant Governor of Missouri at the time, con- 
ducted the defense ; Mr. Clark, then a private citizen after 
one term in Congress, was employed as special counsel by 
the prosecution. Following is a published account of 
the case: 

"When Lieutenant Governor Ball made his argument 
in defense of Heanie he made an able plea for the de- 
fendant, weighing the evidence critically. He drew to a 
climax by summarizing his arguments, punctuating his 
t ^remarks by defying Clark, who was to follow him, to reply 
I [to his arguments and refute his propositions. In the pres- 
lence of a crowded court-room Ball would pause at the 
close of some argumentative statement, tap Clark on the 
Jiead, and bend over him, uttering an audible defiance, 
'Let me hear you answer that, Clark.' Mr. Ball kept this 
up for some time, much to the annoyance of Mr. Clark, 
who was sitting, writing out his own speech. Ball Avas 
iattempting to disconcert him, so finally Clark appealed 
to the court for protection. Clark rose to reply to Ball 
while deathhke stillness filled the room. R. P. Giles, one 
iPf Clark's associate counsel, who was afterward elected 
to Congress, but died before taking his seat, leaned over 
and whispered to Clark in audible tones, the great audi- 
ence bending over to catch his words, the group of news- 
ipaper correspondents reaching over to hear what Giles 
Would say to Clark. 'Remember, Clark, the eyes of Mis- 
souri are on you, just as the eyes of the nation were on 



116 CHAMP CLARK 

you at Tammany Hall. Make the speech of your life.' 
All eyes were turned toward Clark, who was standing 
ready to address the jury, under circumstances seldom 
witnessed in a court-room, and after hearing from an asso- 
ciate counsel words seldom heard in a murder trial. After 
a moment's stillness Clark began one of the most stirring 
prosecuting speeches ever heard In Missouri. It set the 
crowded court-room afire, as it were, with excitement, and 
made the defendant wince under the cutting assaults of 
Clark, who cast aside mercy, and clung to the rigid lines 
of cold, harsh, unanswerable justice. His denunciation 
of Hearne was ringing and vigorous. When he drew to 
a close with a powerful excoriation of the defendant the 
great crowd broke into cheers, while Hearne sat and shiv- 
ered under the hard words of his accuser." 

In this case Mr. Ball saved his client, while Mr. Clark 
increased his fame as a trial lawyer and as a pleader in 
court. 

The climax of the Clark-Norton feud came In the cam- 
paign of 1892. Lieutenant Governor Ball went all over 
the "Bloody Ninth" for Clark. In Crawford County 
the delegates were to be chosen at a great mass-meeting 
at Cuba. Mr. Ball determined to exert every means to 
carry that mass-meeting for Clark. He went to St. Louis 
and chartered a special train to be used in bringing 
Clark's supporters from all parts of the county. This 
would have been a great and winning scheme had it not 
been divulged to Norton. When Norton heard of Ball's 



HIS FRIENDSHIPS 117 

plan he hastened, almost at the last hour, to St. Louis 
and chartered two special trains for the use of his sup- 
porters. The battle was a desperate one, but Ball and 
Clark fought the contest in every nook and corner, and 
Mr. Ball had the intense gratification of seeing his friend 
finally nominated and elected to Congress. 

Mr. Ball relates the following anecdote: 

"When Champ Clark and I were partners in 1877, he 
kept me from getting an awful thrashing. Clark was an 
unusually fine specimen of physical manhood in those 
days, tall, athletic, without a pound of surplus flesh, and 
with muscles of steel. He was just out of school, where, 
among other things, he had practiced in gymnasiums for 
hours daily at every exercise intended to develop strength, 
including boxing. Like most Kentuckians he was fond 
of a pistol, and always kept two or three on hand. One 
day three big, rough fellows, who had taken offense at 
me about a lawsuit, came into the office and picked a fuss 
with me. They cursed and abused me for ten minutes, 
during which time Clark was sitting at his desk, pretend- 
ing to read a book and apparently taking no interest in 
the rumpus. I did not know whether he would help me 
out or not, consequently I did not talk back to the fellows 
very much. At last they concluded to give me a beating 
and advanced toward me. Quick as a flash Clark pulled 
open the drawer of his table, exposing two glittering pis- 
tols to the view of my would-be assailants, and yelled, 
*Hi-yi, you rufl'ians ! I do the fighting for this firm, and 



118 CHAMP CLARK 

I'll give you just three seconds to get out of here, or I'll 
throw you out of the window and break your necks.' 
Within the limit he allowed those fellows were going down 
stairs three steps at a jump. Clark shut up the drawer 
with a grim smile and resumed his reading. I thought 
then that he was the handsomest man I ever saw. He 
has long since given up carrying pistols, but I was glad 
he had them that day." 

In 1908 Ball ran for the Democratic nomination for 
Governor in Missouri, and it was hinted that Clark would 
take the stump for him. Ball's opponents in the bitter 
fight that ensued turned on Clark and said that they 
would beat him for Congress If he opened his mouth in 
the governorship fight. Clark's district has always been 
one of the closest in the country, but he took up the 
cudgels for Ball, saying, "I'll not only fight for Ball, but 
if it will elect him, I'll resign my seat in Congress." The 
campaign he waged against great odds is one of the most 
interesting chapters in the political annals of Missouri ; he 
helped carry the Ball banner to victory in eighty-five 
counties out of one hundred and fourteen. In speaking of 
Ball he said: 

"Thirty-five years ago Dave Ball took me in when I 
was penniless and divided his crust with me; it was slim 
picking, God knows, but such law business as he had he 
divided with me. Now he asks my aid, and he will get it 
in Scriptural measure, heaped up, pressed down, and nm- 
ning over." Clark borrowed money to help pay the cam- 



HIS FRIENDSHIPS 119 

paign expenses, and besides being a liberal giver, he lent 
the campaign committee all he could scrape together, and 
when the fight was over he returned the promissory notes, 
canceled. This is the way Clark remembered his friends — 
the friends of his early days. As he often expressed it to 
his secretary, "Do what this man wants done, and do it the 
best possible way, for he was my friend when there were 
very few of them." 

The friendship of Clark and Ball was well portrayed 
three centuries ago by Abraham Cowley, considered then 
Shakespeare's equal, in a poem on the death of his friend 
Harvey : 

"Say, for you saw us, ye immortal lights! 

"How oft unwearied have we spent the nights, 

"Till the Ledaean stars, so famed for love, 

"Wonder'd at us from above; 

"We spent them not in toys, in lust nor wine, 

"But search of deep philosophy, 

"Wit, eloquence, and poetry; 

"Arts which I loved, for they, my friend, were thine." 

Champ Clark and Thomas B. Reed were kindred spirits, 
though antipodal in politics. When Mr. Clark first ar- 
rived in Washington to take his seat in Congress he was 
duly and formally presented to Speaker Reed. Mr. Clark 
remarked that he had frequently used the name of Mr. 
Reed in his Missouri campaign speeches, whereupon Mr. 
Reed turned a quizzical look upon the new member and 
exclaimed, "Certainly, but how, Mr. Clark, — how did you 



120 CHAMP CLARK 

use my name?" Thus began an acquaintance which in 
time ripened into a lasting friendship. 

In an Interview with James B. Morrow Mr. Clark thus 
set forth his relations with Mr. Reed: 

"When I came to Congress in 1893 I admired Mr. 
Reed's ability, or rather his intellectuality, but I disliked 
him politically. He had been a czar, and had beaten down 
my party In the House. Before long I was glad to ac- 
knowledge to myself that Thomas B. Reed, In pure men- 
tality, was one of the greatest Americans In history. I 
was introduced to him early in my services. He was 
friendly enough, but was not running after new acquaint- 
ances. 

"Perhaps I did not speak to him again until after I 
had heard a speech by a man from New Jersey, who had 
given Oklahoma a bad reputation, saying that It was good 
for nothing but lizards and snakes. I had spent two of 
the happiest weeks of my life shooting and fishing In 
Oklahoma, and the New Jersey man, I knew, had Igno- 
rantly and maliciously distorted one of the finest regions 
on earth into a hideous physical nightmare. Then some 
one else, a member from New York, as I remember, put a 
few more yellow daubs and flourishes on the picture. 

" 'I have a mind to answer those fellows,' I said to 
Richard P. Bland, the great apostle of free silver, who 
sat across the aisle. 

" 'Go after them ; give them thunder ! They are noth- 
ing but damned goldbugs, anyway," rephed Bland, 



HIS FRIENDSHIPS 121 

"So I opened. Workings round to the theme I like the 
best of all — the soil and the climate of the Middle West, 
especially of the State of Missouri — I was stacking it up 
pretty high, when I happened to look at Reed. He was 
lolling In his chair, and was evidently enjoying the per- 
formance, because his enormous face was wrinkled into a 
tremendous smile, and his eyes twinkled with merriment. 
*Why, Mr. Speaker,' I said, 'the last time the distin- 
guished gentleman from Maine was in my district he took 
up a handful of our soil, and, after smelling it and fondling 
it and almost tasting it, exclaimed, 'If we had such soil 
in New England we would put it up in packages and sell 
it for seed.' 

"The next day Reed whacked me on the back and said, 
'That was a smart speech you made yesterday.' Later, I 
prepared two other speeches, giving them as much time 
and toil as any man, dead or alive, ever devoted to such 
an undertaking. After that Mr. Reed and I were great 
friends." 

The Louisville Courier- Journal, in a long article about 
Mr. Clark, April 22, 1900, said this as to his friendship 
for Reed: "When Champ Clark came back to the Fifty- 
fifth Congress, after his defeat, he had mellowed and 
broadened. He had ideas on a good many subjects that 
commanded respect, both from political friends and oppo- 
nents. For one thing, he was a great admirer of Tom 
Reed, and never hesitated to express admiration for him, 
even in companies and under conditions where it was not 



122 CHAMP CLARK 

to his personal advantage to do so. He was fascinated 
with Reed's force, originality, and wit, and especially by 
the classic virility of his speech. Champ Clark professes 
to be a judge of Congressional oratory, and he has said 
more than once that in his judgment Tom Reed is the 
best short speechmaker in the United States." 

Among the members of both Houses of Congi'ess none 
entertains a higher regard for Mr. Clark than does Sen- 
ator Bailey, of Texas, as witness his glowing introduction 
to Mr. Clark's biography, published in "Five Famous 
Missourians" : 

"The subject of this sketch is well entitled to a place 
among 'Famous Missourians,' and he has earned his right 
to it by great ability, by fidelity to his principles, and by 
unswerving honesty. There may be Missourians about 
whom the public press prints more frequent comments ; but 
there is not one living to-day, and I very much doubt if 
one ever lived, whose writings and whose speeches have 
been so widely copied and read as have those of Champ 
Clark during the last four years. 

"I have heard his unfriendly critics declare that it was 
the quaintness of his speech and writings that commanded 
such universal attention ; but the men who say that have 
not considered the matter carefully. It is true that there 
is a peculiarity all his own, in his way of saying things; 
but, apart from all that, what he says is always worth 
reading, and nearly always worth remembering. At first 
I was simply entertained by his aphoristic style of speak- 



HIS FRIENDSHIPS 123 

ing, but when I examined the matter independently of 
the manner, I found that there was always meat in his 
odd sentences ; and after an intimate association with him 
in Congress for nearly four years, during which time I 
read or heard everything he has written or spoken, I 
regard him as one of the strongest men in the American 
Congress. There are others there as strong in speech, and 
others as strong in thought; but it is rare to find any 
man either in or out of Congress who is his equal, both in 
thought and speech. And what is better still than the 
way he thinks, or the way he speaks, is his rugged hon- 
esty, which knows 'no variableness, neither shadow of 
turning.' 

"Not only is Champ Clark entitled to a place among 
'Famous Missourians,' but I am willing to put myself on 
record in this print that, if he lives and keeps his health, 
he is destined to become the most 'Famous Missourian' of 
his generation." 



CHAPTER XIV 

Mrs. Clark 

The wife of Speaker Clark is a woman of varied accom- 
plishments, and of stately presence. Her manner is gra- 
cious and pleasing. She is very popular in Washington, 
while in the "Ninth District of Missouri" she is regarded 
as a better "mixer" than her husband. She loves the 
country and the ways of country people, but Is quite at 
home in Washington. 

Mrs. Clark is as great a reader as her husband, and 
their tastes are similar. She is almost, if not quite, her 
husband's equal as an historian, and she aids him. greatly in 
his work. She has at all times taken the deepest and most 
intimate interest in Mr. Clark's career, encouraging him 
and sustaining him in every possible way. 

If she becomes mistress of the White House she will be 
in all respects the equal, in that position, of her husband 
in his. As the wife of the Speaker she has discharged all 
the social duties of her position in a most pleasing manner. 
Her social accomplishments are equal to any demand. 

Naturally the wife of the Speaker is an important per- 
sonage, but Mrs. Clark, as the wife of a prominent mem- 
ber of Congress, during a long residence in Wash- 
ington, became long ago a general favorite by reason of 
her graces and personal charm. She, like her husband, 

134 




Copyright, 1912, by Edmonston. 

MRS. GENEVIEVE BENNETT CLARK 
Opposite p. 124 



MRS. CLARK 125 

has always been a favorite with the newspaper fraternity. 

An exquisite narrative of Mrs. Clark is given by John 
H. Greusel: 

"As Champ Clark Is a man in a thousand, Mrs. Clark 
is a woman In ten thousand, a woman for emergencies, 
social, political, or on the battlefield. 

"How this excellent lady hates a hypocrite ! How plain 
her words, when necessity demands ; how frank she can be ; 
where timid souls shrink and all but die, she rises gloriously 
to the situation." 

Mrs. Clark's father was a planter and slave-holder in 
Calloway County, Missouri. She traces her descent from 
Huguenot stock. On her father's side the Bennetts came 
to Maryland with Lord Baltimore; on her mother's side 
are the McAfees, the first settlers of Kentucky. Mrs. 
Clark is of fighting stock — Scotch-Irish, English, and 
French Huguenot, an admixture that makes for Independ- 
ence of character. She is always ready to read her ulti- 
matum, and often it is as direct and final as an advance 
taste of the Day of Judgment. 

Once upon a time a well-known editor of a woman's 
magazine in New York wished Mrs. Clark to write her 
experiences as the wife of a Congressman. It was to be 
one of a series, on experiences of wives. The editor prac- 
tically told her what she ought to say, and Mrs. Clark 
replied that he had better, under the circumstances, write 
it himself, since he knew just what he wanted in advance. 



126 CHAMP CLARK 

Let me tell you one story — I could tell dozens — of Mrs. 
Champ Clark. It is about her lost purse and the hungry 
man. The episode shows her stern sense of justice, and, 
too, her quality of mercy. 

She had come out of a store, had walked a block, when 
she missed her purse; quickly retracing her steps, away 
down the street she saw a tramp just stooping and picking 
up something. Her intuition told her that he had her 
pocketbook. 

She followed with an outraged sense of justice as you 
would follow a thief. The man was going through a park 
in the poorer quarter of Washington, near the markets. 

At the moment that Mrs. Clark came close enough to 
speak to him he still had something in his hand. 

"Did you find my purse.''" 

"No." 

"Open your hand." 

He slowly obeyed. 

"That's my purse, and my money ; hand it over. I will 
quote you the Bible on honesty." 

And she started off, indignant. She counted the money 
and found it all there. But as she walked away, her mood 
changed. Somehow she recalled, although at the time she 
hadn't noticed it, that his clothes were shabby, and she 
thought that he must have been hungry. 

She went on her way home, however; yet more and more 
thoughts of the poor man kept intruding; and presently 
she felt a twinge of remorse at what she had said and' 



MRS. CLARK 127 

done. Then she turned and walked quickly back, seeking 
the man in order to give him the purse, with a kind word. 
For hours she searched, and at dusk she went home, still 
dissatisfied. The next day she started out again. She 
never found him — and although all this happened long 
ago, she scarcely ever sees a tramp without eyeing him 
closely, thinking that he may be the missing man. 

A very satisfactory account of Mrs. Clark was pub- 
lished in Harper's Bazaar for July, 1911, from which the 
following extracts are made: 

"Mrs. James Beauchamp Clark, of Bowling Green, 
Missouri, is the wife of 'Champ' Clark, the new Speaker 
of the House of Representatives. She is also the mother 
of jVIiss Genevieve Bennett Clark, a debutante of next 
season, and of a remarkable son, Bennett Clark, who 
wishes to change his name to 'Champ.' In the last 
Congressional campaign this young man, who is still in 
college, challenged his father's opponent to debate and 
worsted him in argument as thoroughly as his father did 
at the polls some days later. 

"Mrs. Champ Clark does not appear to be standing in 
reflected light, but gives one an immediate impression of 
marked individuality. She has a slow Southern voice, 
musical in conversation; she has also iron-gray hair, a 
very earnest manner, and extremely good taste in dress. 
That she reads much, thinks much, and has views of her 
own, no one can doubt who talks with her. 



128 CHAMP CLARK 

" 'I am often asked what influence a politician's wife 
has on his career,' she said one day. *I think that depends 
on the politician and his wife.' Mrs. Clark emphasizes 
her words with an uplifted, slender forefinger, a gesture 
that somehow subtly suggests the occasional heavier peda- 
gogic attitude of Champ Clark in public speaking. 

" 'Public opinion,' she went on, 'is inclined to overrate 
the wife's influence, if she is clever; and even if she is 
stupid, she is held to account for many things for which 
she is not responsible. More than any other woman, the 
politician's wife must be mindful of public opinion. As 
his field enlarges, her horizon must broaden. She must not 
only love her neighbor as herself, but she must love her 
husband better than he loves himself.' 

"Somewhere it is written, 'Women who have lived their 
lives bravely and well, seldom cry after they are forty.' 
One recalls that saying when looking at Mrs. Clark. Her 
fine, strong face speaks so eloquently of a brave life and 
of a character built above the thousand and one worries 
which will force their way into the career of the wife of a 
man of public affairs. Moreover, she has the saving gi'ace 
of humor. As she talks there comes at times an almost 
boyish twinkle in her dark, rather tragic eyes, and a 
happy star seems shining there as she speaks of her girl- 
hood and early married life. One little incident throws 
a significant light on her present-day philosophy. 

"She was the youngest of seven children bom to Mr. 
and Mrs. Joel Davis Bennett on a farm out in Calloway 



MRS. CLARK 129 

County, Missouri, and she was proportionately as much 
in the limelight as the baby of this household as she is 
now as the wife of the Speaker. It was a momentous step 
when the family circle decided that her fifth birthday 
should mark her departure to the little neighborhood 
schoolhouse, where her eldest sister was teacher. Thrilled 
with the importance of an event that marked her 'grown 
up,' she rushed to her room in the top of the house and 
jumped up and down for joy. 

" 'It was perhaps the first and last time that I can 
remember being glad that I was old, but as I looked out 
of the window I noticed that the tree-tops seemed to be 
jumping up and down with me in my happiness. I noticed 
it then and I have noticed the same thing since. If one's 
heart jumps up and down hard enough, the rest of the 
world seems to keep time. It works even in politics. 

" 'When I first met Mr. Clark I found that he had set 
his heart on a political career. Politics were as much out- 
side of my experience then as aeroplaning is now, and well- 
meaning friends made gloomy predictions over the idea 
of the marriage of an impractical, rather bookish young 
woman and a struggling politician. But we had fallen in 
love, so we were marned, and lived happy ever afterward. 
I gave him the best I had always, and never allowed any 
ordinary matter of business or society to keep me at home 
when he invited me to accompany him on his political 
trips, long or short, over the country.' 

"During the Washington season Wednesday afternoons 



130 CHAMP CLARK 

the wife of the Speaker holds her receptions. These are 
attended not only by the wives of other members of Con- 
gress, and by the wives of Senators, but by whatever pro- 
portion of the general public that feels itself inspired to 
call and accept hospitality and tea. Mrs. Clark will prove 
an adequate hostess on these occasions. 

"Under her gracious manner lies the ready adaptability 
of the trained politician, and deeper still, that character- 
istic without which no hostess in public life may hope 
really to succeed — the genuine and instinctive apprecia- 
tion of the 'good there is in us.' An old Missouri cam- 
paigner said, 'For purposes of coaxing a feud district into 
good nature, Champ Clark and his wife can't be equaled; 
and it's my opinion that she makes friends even quicker 
than he does.' 

"Above the fireplace in the library of j\Irs. Clark's 
apartment in Washington is a framed autographed pic- 
ture of Mark Twain, and close beside it is an illuminated 
motto of his, 'To be good Is noble, but to teach others 
to be good is nobler, and less trouble.' Mrs. Clark's 
smile toward both picture and text expresses the same 
whimsical kindliness that shines in the writings of the 
humorist. With Mark Twain Mrs. Clark had a beautiful 
and intimate friendship, dating from her girlhood. They 
were 'born and raised,' to speak Missouri, In adjoining 
counties. 

"Mrs. Clark speaks with serious feeling of the lasting 
good of the religious Instruction given in the isolated 



MRS. CLARK ISS 

homes of the old-thne Presbyterian community. 'There 
were no fancy brands of reHgion on the farm.' And the 
strict Sabbath and the well-learned Catechism established 
principles not supposed to predominate in the political 
world. So the effort to establish the ways of 'Continental 
Sunday' entertaining in Washington will receive scant 
encouragement from the wife of the present Speaker. 

" 'I couldn't get my own consent to it,' she said simply, 
when asked whether it was her husband's engagements 
that prevented their attendance at an important dinner 
given on a Sunday night. 

"Convention at the capital prescribes that the hostess 
in the Speaker's home need not return calls, but Mrs. 
Clark intends to follow the admirable example of Miss 
Cannon, who, during her father's rule as Speaker, made a 
conscientious effort to find every one 'who thought 
enough of her to leave a card.' 

"Mrs. Clark will have no social secretary." 



CHAPTER XV 

"Square to the Four Winds that Blow" 

Mr. Clark believes with Jefferson that the whole art of 
government consists in being honest and in a realization 
of the Golden Rule. It is a simple creed and as sublime 
as the religion of our Savior. Jefferson's patriotism, up- 
rightness, and philanthropy cannot be doubted, and these 
are conspicuous qualities in Clark's character. Hildreth, 
whose splendid ability as an historian was too often used 
to defame Jefferson, admitted ungrudgingly that the 
author of the Declaration of Independence was a philan- 
thropist. No two men in our history are more alike than 
Clark and Jefferson in many respects, or more dissimilar 
in others. They resemble each other in immovableness of 
pui"pose and in strength of will, in their love of classical 
learning and in scholarship, in exalted patriotism and 
abiding faith in man's ability to govern himself, and in 
their advocacy of popular rights. 

Jefferson was no orator, though with his pen he was the 
master of the art of expression in pure English. He ruled 
the masses about him from the council-board, or with the 
power of his pen ; Clark leads by fellowship with his fol- 
lowers. He is a man of action and his military instincts 
account for his mastery over men. Clark is both Jackson 
and Jefferson in one. He has Jackson's executive force 

132 



"SQUARE TO THE FOUR WINDS" 133 

and Jefferson's depth of perception and strength of 
thought. He has intense warmth of feeling, and this 
accounts for his frequent displays of zeal and enthusiasm ; 
but he is unswervingly steadfast, unstampedable, unshaken 
by any breeze, standing indeed "four square to the winds 
that blow." 

Jefferson had his faults, as Hildreth bears cheerful wit- 
ness ; Jackson had faults and flaws of character which he 
never thought necessary to conceal nor excuse. Clark has 
none of Jefferson's and Jackson's delinquencies — ^his faults 
are his own — and he would not conceal nor minimize one 
of them. 

Clark pities a weak man in a high place ; he hates 
hypocrisy anywhere; he detests and abhors a political 
party that is untrue to its pledges, platforms, and preten- 
sions ; he has for years denounced corruptionists in public 
office and the plundering instincts of the human wolves 
congregating about the national capital seeking govern- 
mental advantage or aid in their nefarious designs, and 
when he encounters such a person on the floor of Congress 
his wrath is unbottled and his indignation never subsides. 

Mr. Clark made a speech in Congress once on "Speech- 
stealers and Speech-stealing." He had suflPered from these 
vandals, but his speech on this occasion was not the vent- 
ing of personal pique, but was directed to the pitiful and 
piratical practice of weak men, who appropriate for their 
own uses men's mental property and mental products. 
Mr. Clark's fervid admiration — almost adoration — of men 



134 CHAMP CLARK 

gifted with literary powers and his love of fair dealing 
account for his intolerance of that vulgarity described 
by the word "plagiarism." That speech shows us how 
"square" Mr. Clark is in mental honesty — the highest 
form of that virtue. Mr. Clark has mental honesty in an 
exalted degree. He is absolutely unswervingly true and 
loyal to his own mental convictions and conceptions. He 
would go unflinchingly to oblivion rather than controvert 
his own mental convictions. One of the finest tributes to 
Clark's character is contained in this paragraph from 
Greusel : 

"Clever writers of the Smart Aleck School of 
Journalism have long and fraudulently pictured Champ 
Clark as a blunt provincial, overlooking the man's rugged 
honesty, the brilliancy of this famous orator's mind, his 
solid common sense, his knowledge of music, literature, 
and art, his storehouse of reading and research, his intui- 
tions of men's ways. His has been among the picturesque 
careers of our times, and his honest denunciation of fraud 
has dictated epoch-making national legislation for nearly 
a generation past. His influence will abide." 

The Congressional Record fairly scintillates with his 
irony, his sarcasm, his Olympian thunders directed at the 
shows, frauds, trickery, and the high-handed and whole- 
sale pllferlngs of those who loot in the name of patriotism. 
A splendid chapter in any biography of Mr. Clark could 
be compiled from his speeches on this very subject. A 
small volume — indeed a large volume — could be collated 



"SQUARE TO THE FOUR WINDS" 135 

from the Congressional Record by review of all his 
speeches dealing >vith human obliquity. Yet Mr. Clark 
is more noted for his good humor, for his abounding faith 
in the rectitude of man, than for liis discoveries of 
obliquities. 

Mr. Clark himself has met the supreme test as to 
solidity of character in becoming Speaker of the House. 
The Speakership is the hardest office in the world to fill, 
and the hardest to get. Sometimes a man of indifferent 
ability may be elected to Congress, or even to the Presi- 
dency, but no mediocre can ever be elected Speaker of the 
House of Representatives. He is always chosen from the 
membership, though this is not required by law. The- 
oretically our Congress is composed of the ablest men in 
the nation, and practically the House is not far below the 
theoretical standard. A majority of the members of the 
House choose one of their number as the presiding officer, 
and intrust into his hands vast powers over legislation 
and over the conduct of public business. Any Speaker 
could make a million by a mere connivance, but no Speaker 
ever has been recreant to his mighty trust, for all have 
entered the office poor and have left it as poor as when they 
entered it — with only rare exceptions. 

Mr. Clark was practically elected Speaker by the popu- 
lar voice of the American people. During the Congres- 
sional campaign of 1910 the issue was squarely made 
between Champ Clark and Speaker Cannon in every dis- 
trict in the Union. In every Congressional district of the 



136 CHAMP CLARK 

nation the public speakers informed the voters that a Re- 
publican victory would re-elect Cannon to the Speaker- 
ship, and that a Democratic victory would result in the 
elevation of Mr. Clark to the Speakership. The vote of 
the nation was favorable to Clark. The Democratic can- 
didates for Congress all over the nation pledged themselves 
thus in advance to make Clark Speaker, a pledge willingly 
and voluntarily made; they had long recognized him as 
the most capable and masterful spirit among them. They 
knew him to be able, impartial, and incorruptible ; they 
knew to a certainty that he would not abuse, nor in any 
way misuse, the power thus given to him. Not a complaint 
has been made against the present Speaker by any member 
of his own party or of the Republican party. 

On the occasion of the anniversary of his birthday, 
March 7, 1912, Representative Austin paid an eloquent 
tribute to Mr. Clark. Mr. Austin is a Republican, and 
his speech was one of several, all attesting Mr. Clark's 
staunchness of character. Subjoined is a verbatim reprint 
from the Congressional Record: 

Mr. Austin — Mr. Chairman, I ask for two minutes in 
which to address the Committee of the Whole. 

Several Members — Make it five. 

Mr. Austin — Five minutes. 

The Chairman — The gentleman from Tennessee asks 
unanimous consent to proceed for five minutes. Is there 5 
objection.'' 



"SQUARE TO THE FOUR WINDS" 137 

There was no objection. 

Mr. Austin — Mr. Chairman, the honorable presiding 
ofBcer of this House is not only your Speaker, but he is 
our Speaker. [Applause.] No man who could have been 
selected on that side of the House for that high and ex- 
alted office could have met with a warmer approval or 
endorsement on this side of the House than the Hon. 
Champ Clark. [Applause.] In the administration of 
that office he has been kind, considerate, and absolutely 
just and impartial. [Applause.] 

I wish not only to congratulate him upon his birthday, 
but I congratulate his party on the wisdom of his selection 
as their leader in this House. [Applause.] I desire also, 
Mr. Chairman, on behalf of myself and colleagues on this 
side, to congratulate the Republican party in having such 
a man to preside over this Democratic House. [Ap- 
plause.] I congratulate the American people because we 
have a typical American in that high place. [Applause.] 
And, gentlemen, I congratulate you upon your opportu- 
nity to make him the standard-bearer of the "unten'ified" 
Democracy. [Applause.] He would make, if he had the 
opportunity, a wise Executive of the American people, 
one who would have their welfare and interest always up- 
pennost in his mind in the administration of that great 
office. [Applause.] If we are to have a Democrat, we 
would all prefer him, but we are going to have a Repub- 
lican President. 



CHAPTER XVI 

Sparks from Clark's Anvil 

The American mind is so rigged up that it makes no 
difference how many issues are stated in the platform, the 
people will settle down to one or two. 

I am against repealing the Sherman law, but I favor 
amending it so as to make it perfectly clear, if it is not so 
now, and then enforcing it vigorously. 

When I was a boy down in Kentucky the fanners used 
to say, "You shouldn't grease a fat hog." And let me tell 
3'ou the American Woolen Company doesn't need any 
greasing. 

Taft is the last standpat President of the United 
States. 

/ 

The average citizen believes there's been entirely too 

. much money spent in politics in the last few years. And / 
I he has made up his mind to stop it. 

I believe the people ought to be treated fairly, honestly, 
candidly, and courageously. They are entitled to that 

138 



SPARKS FROM CLARK'S ANVIL 139 

square deal of which we hear so much and see so little. 
The promises made to carry an election ought to be car- 
ried out religiously after the election is won. No other 
rule of political conduct will do to live by. That's all the 
politics I know. 

When Taft went to Winona, Minn., on a certain mem- 
orable occasion, it was the most unfortunate trip ever 
made by a President of the United States, for this reason : 
Mr. Taft made the statement on that occasion that the 
Payne- Aldrich tariff bill was the best tariff ever had by 
the people of the United States. 

Individually, I would rather be accused of horse-stealing 
than of winning on one platform and then jumping on an- 
other after I am in. 

Once a horse-thief was captured and hanged in Mon- 
tana. One of the lynchers pinned a card on the dead 
thief's back, and on the card was written: "This man 
was a very bad man in some respects, and a whole lot 
worse in others." That is the best description of the 
Payne- Aldrich bill ever made. 

The standpat Republicans say the tariff should be re- 
vised by its friends — I suppose by the same logic the 
trusts should be prosecuted by their friends. 



140 CHAMP CLARK 

There are hundreds of witty yarns in circulation, used 
on platforms, pulpits, college halls, and in campaigns, 
that originated in the fertile brain of Champ Clark. 
Everything "reminds" him of something, and he straight- 
way proceeds to draw on his large sense of historical com- 
parison, for jest or earnest, the result being a story or a 
parable that flashes like a steel-blue diamond. 

On one occasion Clark replied to a Republican that had 
called liim into encounter, concluding in this characteristic 
way: 

Mr. Chairman, a few years ago a tenderfoot went out 
West looking for a grizzly. He was all togged out in the 
latest style of hunting-suit, and dawned like an incredible 
vision on the astonished inhabitants west of the Missouri. 
He asked them where he could find a gi*izzly, and they 
told him reverently that at a certain place not far from 
there grizzlies were numerous, and would come if you 
whistled. Light-heartedly he took his way to the place 
indicated, and two days later they buried his mangled re- 
mains in the local cemetery. Over his innocent young 
head they erected a tombstone, whereon they rudely canned 
this epitaph : "He whistled for the grizzly, and the grizzly 
came." 

Human nature has not changed one jot nor tittle since 
Adam walked with Eve amid the glories of Paradise. 

It Is easy to be liberal, even lavish, with other people's 
money. 



i 



SPARKS FROM CLARK'S ANVIL 141 

I want to say this to my Republican friends: Li the 
heat of debate we are all liable to make a good many 
violent statements. I believe this is true about Repub- 
licans and about Democrats, too — individually they want 
to do what is right; that is, the bulk of them do. Take 
the Republicans one at a time and they are very clever 
sort of gentlemen, but take them en masse and they will 
not do to tie to by a jugful. 

It is safe to say that were every Bible now printed in 
all the languages spoken by the children of men suddenly 
burned by the public hangman, it might be completely 
reproduced from the literature and memory of the world. 

Every library is adorned with books purporting to be 
"Gems of Shakespeare, Byron, or Milton," "Beauties of 
Pope, Longfellow, or Shelley." Did anybody ever see a 
book entitled the "Gems of Job," or "Beauties of Paul".'* 
I have not, and why not.'' For the all-sufficient reason 
that Job is all gems and Paul is all beauty. 

I have such implicit faith in the proposition that truth 
is mighty and will prevail, that if I were as rich as John 
D. Rockefeller, I would publish a popular edition of 
Thomas Jefferson's works, and put a copy in the hands of 
every voter in the United States, absolutely certain that 
it would make this country Democratic for all time to 
come. 



142 CHAMP CLARK 

In the main human nature is brave, gentle, sympathetic, 
charitable, and generous. And politicians are only an in- 
finitesimal portion of the great pulsing race of Adam. 

We reverse the dictum of Mark Anthony and say : "The 
good that men do lives after them." 

Judas Iscariot and Benedict Arnold were angels of light 
when compared with the man who, for gold, lets the 
Trojan horse of corruption into the fortress of American 
liberty. 

\/Th& mark of vagabondage placed upon the first mur- 
derer's brow was a badge of honor beside that which 
should mar the countenance of him who would tamper with 
a free ballot, the Palladium of human rights. 

The worst enemies of our race are those who debauch 
public opinion. 

It is written that a man cannot successfully serve God 
and Mammon. Neither can he become a shameless broker 
of offices and still remain a patriot. 

When I was a boy attending the law school in Cincin- 
nati I heard George H. Pendleton say in the Grand Opera 
House there that "the sweetest incense that ever greeted 
the nostrils of a public man was the applause of the 
people." 



SPARKS FROM CLARK'S ANVIL 143 

Mr. Chairman, here we are in this ridiculous position: 
We pay policemen to crack people's skulls more than 
we pay teachers to improve the inside of their skulls. 

In an earlier day out in Kansas the cashier of a bank 
stole all the money there was in the bank and blew it in on 
No. 2 wheat. The depositors caught him and were pro- 
ceeding to hang him. He said he wanted to make a few 
remarks and they let him down. He declared that he 
wanted to make a proposition ; that he had no money to 
give them, because that was all gone, but that he did not 
want to die an ignominious death by hanging. So he pro- 
posed to them that they might cut him to pieces, and 
each one take the piece that suited him best. One old 
chap on the outside of the crowd yelled out, "The rest of 
you fellows take what you please, but give me that feller's 
gall." Now that is what I want. If it ever comes to pass 
that my friend from Ohio (Grosvenor) is dissected, the 
rest of you take what you please, but give me his gaU. 

I want It written on my tombstone when I am dead that 
I was one of thirty-five men in this House, out of three 
hundred and fifty-seven, that had the nerve, the courage, 
the patriotism, and the good sense to vote against paying 
Spain $20,000,000 for the Philippines, even after the 
Senate had ratified the treaty. 

Even Thomas Jefferson himself, who divides with King 



144 CHAMP CLARK 

Solomon and Lord Bacon the honor of being the wisest 
man that ever lived, had no adequate conception of the 
vast Importance and far-reaching influence on human 
affairs of the wondrous bargain in real estate which he 
secured from the martial Corsican. One of the strangest 
omissions in all literature was made by him, when, having 
sounded all the shoals and depths of honor, he failed to 
refer in any way to the great Louisiana Purchase In the 
famous epitaph which he prepared for his own monument, 
and which runs In this wise: 

*'Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Dec- 
laration of Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for 
religious freedom, and father of the University of Vir- 
ginia." 

These xeere magnificent achievements — each ample to 
give him Imperishable renown — for which we are all his 
debtors forever and forever; but. If he could have com- 
prehended the full and marA'clous effects of his unequaled 
trade with the First Consul, he would have added to that 
epitaph a fourth claim to the eternal admiration and 
gratitude of his countrymen, and to undying fame, "the 
author of the Louisiana Purchase," wlilch alone of Itself 
entitles him to first place among American statesmen. 



CHAPTER XVII 

Reminiscent 
The Blue Jackass 

Mr. Clark thus discussed his own childhood: 
"When I was ten years old I went to live with John 
Call, that I might attend school in the village of Mack- 
ville. Although Call could neither read nor write, he was 
a cracking good farmer, and a worthy man. His wife 
was a motherly woman, and my little sister and I had 
a good home. I paid for my board by feeding stock and 
cutting wood. Part of my duty morning and evening 
was to feed thirty head of mules and a blue jackass. One 
morning I gave the jackass all the com intended for the 
thirty mules, and went into the house for breakfast. Was 
absent-minded, you know. My recollection was that I 
was thinking about my lessons. 

"John Call never knew why I nearly broke my neck 
getting out of the house before I was fairly seated at the 
breakfast table. However, I saved the life of the jackass. 
As it was, he had eaten about fifteen ears of com before 
I succeeded in clubbing him out of the stable. If the 
jackass had died, my father, with pockets empty, would 
have had to pay John Call, and my sister and I would 
probably have lost a comfortable home. Indeed, I feel 

145 



146 CHAMP CLARK 

kind of shaky to this day whenever I think of that greedy 
blue jackass and my very narrow escape from having his 
untimely and irregular death laid to my criminal careless- 
ness." 



TUENED OUT OF ChUECH 

Not long after Mr. Clark took up his abode at Louisi- 
ana, Mo., there was a steamboat excursion on the Missis- 
sippi River. The excursionists were mostly young people 
and there was dancing. Mr. Clark was one of the happiest 
of the company and he danced all night. The following 
Lord's Day he attended church, according to his usual 
custom. 

One of the brothers arose in the congregation and re- 
ported that one of the flock had gone astray. He related 
most sorrowfully the wickedness of the delinquent, and 
delivered a dissertation concerning the dance that took 
place on the steamboat when Brother Clark had disre- 
garded the rules of Christian conduct by indulging in the 
frivolity of that diversion ; he moved that Mr. Clark be 
excluded from the church. The motion carried by unani- 
mous vote, and Mr. Clark was horrified to find himself 
cut off from church membership. He had been a devout 
member of the Christian Church from his earliest youth ; 
he had put himself to great inconvenience to attend Beth- 
any College, founded by Alexander Campbell, and the 



REMINISCENT 147 

chief seat of learning of the Christian Church ; and he had 
graduated from that institution ; he had been superintend- 
ent in the Christian Sunday-school at Camden, Kentucky. 
He believed in his church as he believed in the political 
tenets of Thomas Jefferson. 

Now, to be thrust out in this unceremonious manner, 
for unconsciously violating a church rule, with no oppor- 
tunity for defense, angered him. He strode forth out of 
the House of God in high dudgeon. He cooled his brow 
for a while in the summer breeze beneath the trees, and 
then re-entered the building just as the minister was 
"opening the doors of the church" for any who wished to 
join. Mr. Clark walked forward and offered himself for 
membership. 

There was a murmur of surprise, and the deacons and 
elders began to hold whispered consultation. The fallen 
brother had returned with unexpected promptitude, and 
was asking forgiveness for any wrong committed and de- 
siring reinstatement. The Bible commands that an erring 
brother shall be forgiven. There was nothing else to be 
done in this case. So Mr. Clark was received back into 
the church, after being out of it for less than one hour. 
The experience cured him of dancing, and he continues to 
this day a member of the church in good standing. 

Jeeey Simpson 

Mr. Clark referred in a speech in Congress to his un- 



148 CHAMP CLARK 

successful attempt to make Kansas his adopted State. 
The speech was known far and wide as his "Obscure 
Heroes" speech. Mr. Clark said: 

"There is one funny circumstance about my brief resi- 
dence in Kansas. I have a good deal of sympathy, I will 
say by way of preliminary, with Mr. Jerry Simpson. Last 
summer I was going home from New York on the train 
and when I grew weary of having nobody to talk to I 
went into the smoker and entered into conversation with 
a man I found there. He had on a white choker and 
looked like a minister of the gospel. I asked him where 
he was from and he replied, 'Hutchinson, Kansas.' 

"Then I inquired about the salt wells and things of 
that kind. Said he, 'You seem to know a good deal about 
Kansas.' 'Yes,' I answered, 'I went out there in 1875 to 
practice law, and I left because the grasshoppers drove me 
out of the State, and I don't believe there has been a 
grasshopper in the State since.' He looked very serious 
for a minute or two, and then said, 'No, there has not been 
any grasshoppers there since, but we have something out 
there that is a d — d sight worse than grasshoppers.' 
'Good heavens !' I exclaimed, 'what is it ?' 'Why,' replied 
my clerical-looking friend, 'it is Jerry Simpson.' " 

The $500 Bill 

Once upon a time — and this has never been told — a rail- 
road man of high degree down that way, with the best of 



REMINISCENT 149 

intentions, knowing that Champ Clark's election expenses 
would be high, in a hot campaign, and that Champ's 
pocketbook was flat, quietly called on Mrs. Champ Clark 
and just before leaving handed over an envelope; and 
after he was gone Mrs. Clark found in it a new five- 
hundred-dollar bill. Here was a situation. She knew that 
if she told Champ there would be no living under the same 
roof with him for a week, such would be his black rage; 
and besides, the railroad man was honorable, but he had 
overplayed his part, thoughtlessly, so Mrs. Clark believed. 

She took the five-hundred-dollar bill, slipped it out of 
sight in a certain place, where women hide money, and 
kept her guilty secret till after the election. 

Then she told the whole story and handed Champ the 
five-hundred-dollar bill. 

What did he do? He wrote a fair-minded letter, such 
as you yourself would like to receive, under similar circum- 
stances, thanking his friend for the well-intended help, 
and, inclosing the five-hundred-dollar bill, sent it back. 

Not a line ever came out in the newspapers ; no play 
to the galleries ; no sensational charges of attempted 
bribery, so familiar in the creed of the demagogue — but 
a man's frank letter to a man. To this day the two are 
the best of friends, and there is no reason why they should 
not continue to remain such to the end. 

— John H. Greusel. 



160 CHAMP CLARK 



Clark at "Honey Shuck" 

The Clark home, spacious and comfortable and resem- 
bling a substantial farmer's mansion, stands three blocks 
east of the court-house, on the edge of a deep ravine, 
which is crossed by a narrow wooden footbridge. There 
are several acres of ground, covered with all kinds of na- 
tive forest trees, many of them festooned with vines, and 
in the autumn they are loaded with grapes. The name 
"Honey Shuck" was given to this residence because of two 
fine, thorny locust trees that stand near the house. 

The chief charm of the place is to be found on the 
inside, especially when Mr. Clark, with his family, is occu- 
pying it as a residence. He has here the finest private 
library in the State of Missouri ; not for show, but for use. 
Here Mr. Clark may be found when at home surrounded 
with his books and papers, always busy, but never too 
busy to receive visitors who may call to see him. The 
humblest is made welcome to his home with the same unre- 
served cordiality as the mightiest of the land. 

Annually, In the autumn before the family departs for 
Washington, there is a public reception given at "Hone}"^ 
Shuck," on which occasion Mrs. Clark, Miss Genevieve 
Clark, and Bennett Clark aid the big Congressman in re- 
ceiving his friends, who come for miles, driving to Bowling 
Green in buggies, can'iages, and automobiles. The notice 
of these annual receptions is published in the papers, and 



REMINISCENT 151 

simply says that the Clark family will expect their friends 
without further invitation. Mr. Clark enjoys these re- 
ceptions and moves about among the guests, discussing 
the crops, the weather, poHtics, anything and everything, 
interspersing the talk with inimitable anecdotes. 

Mrs. Clark, talented, stately, is a great favorite at 
Bowling Green as she is in Washington, while the daugh- 
ter, the very picture of her handsome father, with blue 
eyes and flaxen hair, is the idol of her Pike County friends. 
Bennett Clark is the future hope of the Ninth Congres- 
sional district, where no one doubts that he will be in all 
respects worthy of his distinguished father. 

Mr. Clark has more canes and less use for them than 
any other man in the county. He cannot refuse these 
tokens of regard when they are presented by admiring 
friends. He also has a fine collection of Indian relics, in 
which he takes great pride. 

Me. Clark as a Bill Collector 

The story goes, though unauthenticated, that when 
Champ Clark began the practice of law at Louisiana, Mo., 
he was employed by a certain business firm to collect some 
old accounts, among them a bill against a farmer living 
in Pike County. 

He went out to see the farmer and walked up to him and 
said brusquely, "My name is Clark." The farmer looked 
at him and said, "Yes, I know your name is Clark." The 



152 CHAMP CLARK 

visitor, without a smile, going straight to the business in 
hand, said: "Old man Blank has a bill against you and 
wants me to collect it. What are you going to do about 
it?" The farmer sized up the six-footer and repHed, "Oh, 
I hardly know, but I guess I'll pay it," which he did on 
the spot. 

That Pair of Mules 

The avowed purpose of Mr. Clark to drive down Penn- 
sylvania Avenue behind a team of Pike County mules 
when he should go to the Capitol to assume the Speaker- 
ship received wide publicity in the newspapers. Nearly 
every newspaper in the United States and a few in Canada 
printed the story, with comments and with comparisons 
with the story of Thomas Jefferson's riding to the Capitol 
on horseback and hitching the animal to the fence while 
he went in to take the oath as President. 

Mr. Clark has long been famous for unique and striking 
expressions and ideas. On a parallel with this proposition 
was his declaration that, if he could have his way, every 
custom-house in the land would be bumed down. This set 
Mr. Clark before the country as a free trader with accen- 
tuation that no argument could have procured. His prop- 
osition about the mules dates back some years, and has 
to do with a story of adventure and the loyalty of friends. 

Luke Emerson, a wealthy stock raiser in Mr. Clark's 
district, a Republican in politics, but an admirer and con- 



REMINISCENT 153 

stituent of the Pike County Congressman, was touring 
In Europe some years ago. One night he was taking in the 
sights of London when he was set upon by three robbers. 
Mr. Emerson promptly killed one of them and crippled 
the other two. The police came rushing to the spot and, 
seeing the fallen men, arrested Emerson as the aggressor 
and humed him off to prison. In this dilemma the incar- 
cerated Missourian cabled to Champ Clark. 

Gov. David R. Francis was at the time in Europe, inter- 
viewing the crowned heads in behalf of the Louisiana Pur- 
chase Exposition. Clark and Francis were on the best 
of terms, having canvassed the State together when Fran- 
cis was running for Governor. Clark was in the Legisla- 
ture when Francis v/as inaugurated the Chief Executive 
of the State. When Mr. Clark received the cablegram 
from his friend Emerson he at once communicated with 
Francis, who hastened to London and easily secured Emer- 
son's release. Mr. Emerson was very grateful to both 
Clark and Francis. He subscribed twenty-five hundred 
dollars then and there, and gave Mr. Francis a check for 
twenty-five hundred dollars for stock in the exposition. 

When Mr. Clark became a member of the Ways and 
Means Committee, Mr. Emerson foresaw the Speakership 
looming in the distance, being perhaps the first man to 
see Speaker Clark dimly outlined on the horizon. Mr. 
Emerson made this proposition, "On the day that Mr. 
Clark shall become Speaker of the House I will present 
him with the finest span of mules on my farm, provided he 



154 CHAMP CLARK 

will drive them down Pennsylvania Avenue once." Mr. 
Clark is as good a judge of live stock as he is of men, and 
he accepted Mr. Emerson's offer, considering it a joke. 

Some Old School-Books 

Mr. Clark and Mrs. Clark often revert to their school 
days and to the books that they studied in childhood, and 
both take joy in recalling the merits of the old-time text- 
book. James B. Mon-ow asked Mr. Clark, "What books 
have had the greatest influence on your life.'"' The ques- 
tion uncovered his philosophy and revealed the head- 
waters of his inspiration. He answered : " 'Buckle's His- 
tory of Civilization in England,' which opened many 
things to me and set me to thinking, and the 'Rhetoric' of 
George Payn Quackenbos. Of course, I put the Bible 
above all else." 

These two books led the youthful Clark to study the 
art of expression, which made him an orator, and political 
economy, which made him a statesman. He would have 
been an orator and a statesman anyway, but it is interest- 
ing to know from what books he received his first and, per- 
haps, greatest impetus. 

Continuing, Morrow wrote: 

"The year 1862, when Henry Thomas Buckle, hurrying 
from Egypt to London, died at Damascus, and when 
Champ Clark, then a youth of twelve, hacked himself on 
the leg while cutting com in Kentucky — related incidents, 




Copyright, 1912, by Edmonston. 

MISS GENEVIEVE CLARK 
'>ostte p. 154 



REMINISCENT 155 

in a way, though wide apart geographically — the year 
1862, as I was about to say, unmistakably impresses itself 
upon current events, and may possibly compel some 
changes in the schedules of the tariff bill now (1908) in 
the toils and pains of Republican unification. 

"It was in October of that year that Champ Clark ap- 
peared for the first time in public. He was working for 
John Call, a farmer. There was a picnic in the neigh- 
borhood, and he had a piece that he wanted to declaim. 
John Call promised to let him off when he had cut eleven 
fat shocks of corn, which was a decent day's work for an 
able-bodied man. Champ cut the corn, beginning before 
day, and also, in his eagerness and haste, he cut a gash in 
his leg. Binding his wound, he sped away. An orator 
was born that day who has been diligent with his fine 
talent for talk ever since. 

"At about the same time, perhaps. Buckle was breath- 
ing his last at the edge of a desert, among heathens and 
infidels — Buckle, who declared that man is the result of 
civilization, that therefore civilization cannot be the work 
of man, and that intellectual progress is wholly a matter 
of climate, soil, and food. The doctrines and graces of 
Buckle and Quackenbos, joining and centering themselves 
in one vigorous personality, have given the country 
Champ Clark, the Central West its most persistent and 
glowing prophet, and to the State of Missouri, where per- 
fect climate, soil, and food, proportioned, and mingled by 
the hand of Nature, produce the only ideal men and 



156 CHAMP CLARK 

women in the history of all mankind, its sweetest minstrel 
and its most masterful advocate. At bottom Champ Clark 
is a missioner of sunshine. He wanted something large 
and glorious to talk about. Buckle took him by the hand 
and led him into the valley of the Mississippi, and there 
Quackenbos put moving words into his mouth." 

Mrs. Clark fondly recalls the days of her girlhood, when 
she gave her best efforts to the mastery of "McGuffey's 
Eclectic Readers" (old series) and "Ray's Arithmetic." 
These old-fashioned books have honored places to this day 
on Mrs. Clark's bookshelves. She has adopted these books 
as her "hobby," inasmuch as she was called upon to have 
a hobby, which she had not heretofore thought necessary 
to have. She said in an interview: 

"My search for a hobby came about in this way : Among 
my duties in Mr. Clark's absence is to look over his mail, 
answer his correspondence, etc. Some time ago I received 
a request from a magazine for a three-hundred-word arti- 
cle on my 'hobby'. I thought and studied and investi 
gated and dreamed in search of, oh, just any kind of a 
'hobby.' I discovered that most women — especially club- 
women — have them. Still, my search was quite in vain 
I am frank to confess that it is the same as it was. I 
can't find anything that beats 'McGuffey's Readers' and 
'Ray's Arithmetic.'" 

Her preference for these school-books accords with the 
expressed opinions of James G. Blaine and Whitelaw Reid 
She maintains that "McGuffey's Readers," which she 



REMINISCENT 157 

studied in the little country schoolhouse down in Calloway 
County, Missouri, have been one of the greatest forces in 
her life. She insists that there is nothing in the modem 
text-books to compare with the moral and religious tone 
of the stories in those quaint volumes. She committed to 
memory all the poems in those "Readers," and she has not 
forgotten them. Especially does she recall the pointed 
doggerel of "Meddlesome Mattie," the shining virtues of 
"Grateful Juhan," and the horrible fate of the "Idle 
Schoolboy." 

Many a man and woman who recalls the well-thumbed 
pages of Webster's old blue-back "Speller," which often 
went with "Ray's Arithmetic" and the "McGufFey's 
Readers" in the country schoolhouses of a generation 
ago, will quite agree with Mrs. Clark in her preference for 
these sterling old school-books. 



CHAPTER XVIII 



Vaeious Opinions 



HASTINGS MACADAMS 



(In the St. Louis Republic, November 30, 1910) 

Clark Discusses Committeeships. — Champ Clark 
reminisces now and then. While in Washington he is a 
flat dweller. One evening recently, in his cozy apartment, 
while lolling in a comfortable armchair, he preferred re- 
trospection to talking of urgent issues. 

"If it were not for the name of the thing," he said, "I 
would as soon come to Congress a new member and not be 
appointed to any committee at all." 

This is a startling statement. Committee assignments, 
which vary greatly in importance, are looked upon as giv- 
ing members opportunities for distinguishing themselves, 
which otherwise they would not have. 

"I would be content to serve twenty years without a 
committee place," he continued, "and would wager that I, 
or any other man, would rise to a place in the House just 
commensurate with his abilities. For one who had done 

158 



VARIOUS OPINIONS 159 

pretty well in his State, who had a little local reputation, 
I got as cold a deal as was ever dealt when I first came 
to Congress, twenty years ago. The House was Demo- 
cratic, and then the Speaker, Crisp, put me on the Com- 
mittee on Old Pensions, almost equivalent to no committee 
at all, and on the Committee on Claims in which there is 
ample opportunity for hard work and no opportunity for 
glory. 

"The silver bill was up. It was a big session, and the 
big guns were using all the time. Like most new mem- 
bers, I wanted the speech to make a good impression. I 
was told that I might get in at night, but certainly could 
not have the chance in the daytime. I studied about it 
long enough to find out the working of the five-minute rule, 
and I fixed up a speech on the tariff. I crammed, and sat 
up nights framing all the epigrams that I could, and 
practiced to find out how much talk took five minutes. 
I divided the speech, about an hour and a quarter of it, 
into five-minute sections, and memorized each section. I 
knew them as well as I know the Ten Commandments. 

"One day, when the five-minute rule was in force and the 
House crowded, I got the floor and turned loose for five 
minutes ; and, after holding them pretty well, got my time 
extended five minutes more. A little later I got up again, 
and then had my time extended three times, and so on until 
I had delivered my speech. 

"If importance is to be attached to committeeships," 
continued Mr. Clark, using an informal and conversational 



160 CHAMP CLARK 

style, "I believe that the bottom place on the Ways and 
Means Committee is fully as good as the chairmanship of 
most other Committees. It was not so very long ago, eight 
years, I think, when the Fifty-eighth Congress was organ- 
izing. John Sharp Williams was the Democratic leader. 
I then ranked first among the Democrats of the Com- 
mittee on Foreign Affairs. John came to me and said he 
wanted me to go on the Ways and Means Committee. I 
hedged, saying I was close to the top of a good Committee, 
and, if the House went Democratic, might count on being 
chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs. 'Champ,' 
said John, 'I need you over there. Republican speakers have 
packed the Committee with protection Democrats, and I've 
got to have you to help me in tariff debates on the floor.' 
Well, I agreed to make the change. 

"In four years, such was luck, I passed from the bottom 
to the top among the Democrats of this important com- 
mittee. John Sharp Williams left the House to run for 
the Senate. Robertson, of Louisiana, retired. Swanson, 
of Virginia, quit to run for Governor, McClellan resigned 
to become Mayor of New York, and Cooper, of Texas, was 
beaten for the nomination." 

During all the eight years the tariff was being con- 
stantly agitated in the country. Finally, a revision be- 
came inevitable; the Republican National Convention of 
1908 was forced to promise it. In such a situation, the 
ranking Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee 
was the logical selection for Democratic leader; and the 



i 



VARIOUS OPINIONS 161 

leader, control of the House being won, is now the logical 
choice for Speaker. 

With a Span of Mules 
george geiswold hill 

(In the Nem York Tribune, November 13, 1910) 

"Worked as a hired hand, 
"Clerked in a country store, 
"Edited a country newspaper, 
"And finally practised law." 

— Champ Clark, in Ms own biography 

When a member of the next House of Representatives 
rises and says, "Mr. Speaker," he will not be addressing 
"the gentleman from Danville, 111." but "the gentleman 
from Pike County, Mo." At least, that is the prediction 
of well-informed Democrats, and they ought to know. As- 
suming, therefore — and in the light of the large Demo- 
cratic majority elected last Tuesday — that for once a 
Democratic prediction will come true, when you enter 
the visitors' gallery of the next House you will no 
longer observe the stately form and "affidavit-like" face 
of "Uncle Joe" Cannon surmounting the marble rostrum 
opposite, but instead 3'ou will perceive a tj'pical South- 
erner, stout rather than lean, with clean shaven face and 
a somewhat severe expression, but one that suggests that 
if only refractory Democrats and exasperatingly logical 



162 CHAMP CLARK 

Republicans would permit, it might break into an expan- 
sive smile. 

Champ Clark is a man at whom most people would look 
more than once, whom few people would mistake for any- 
thing but a Democrat. Adorned with his broad, black 
slouch hat it would be impossible to mistake him for any- 
thing but a Democratic politician. He stands six feet 
one inch in his stockings, weighs about two hundred 
pounds, and, except when he is "orating," has a some- 
what commanding presence. When he "orates" he assumes 
a stoop which sometimes resembles a crouch, and were it 
not for the force and sobriety of his utterances some of his 
gestures would seem actually grotesque. 

Bom in 1850 in Kentucky, and immigrating as a com- 
paratively young man to Missouri, Champ Clark combines 
the spread-eagle eloquence of the Blue-Grass State with 
the indomitability of the Missouri mule. An early, but 
brief experience in Kansas, whence he was driven by grass- 
hoppers, imparted to him those vagaries of political and 
economic view which the "insurgents" admire and the 
Democrats adore, and which mark him as the logical 
leader of a Democratic House. 

Pbepares for His Career — A well-educated, in fact, a 
cultivated man, despite his propensity for mules and meta- 
phors, he early demonstrated his love of oratory. When 
only twelve years old he delivered an oration at a country 
picnic in Kentucky. When twenty-three, after having been 
graduated from Bethany College and the Cincinnati Law 



VARIOUS OPINIONS 163 

Schoo}, he became president of Marshall College, being 
the youngest college president in the land. Of his bril- 
liant attainments there was little question, and as a peda- 
gogue he might have achieved an enviable career, but fate 
had marked him for a politician, and he was too wise to 
resist its promptings. As if with a prescience almost in- 
credible, young Clark determined to abandon his collegiate 
career, and still further to fit himself for the position of 
a great leader of the Democracy, he became the proprietor 
and editor of a Missouri newspaper, which he conducted 
with a loyalty to the Democracy wholly oblivious of politi- 
cal facts or economic truths. The sound qualities of the 
man who had been chosen by fate to be a Democratic 
Speaker were abundantly demonstrated, however, when he 
came to sell his newspaper property. He sold it back to 
the man from whom he purchased it — and at a profit. That 
he might acquire the bucolic point of view so essential to 
the Missouri politician, Mr. Clark conducted a series of 
agricultural experiments on a Kansas farm, but, as has 
been told, the grasshoppers were his undoing and he re- 
turned to Missouri a wiser if a poorer man. 

Having done a little of everything and nothing for 
long, and having established an enviable reputation at the 
Pike County bar, Mr. Clark decided, in 1888, that he was 
well fitted to enter upon the serious work of his chosen 
career. He ran for the Missouri Legislature and was 
elected. That he was a genuinely good fellow, possessed 
then as now of many attractive qualities, is abundantly 



164 CHAMP CLARK 

proven by the fact that at least one staunch RepubHcau 
voted for his nomination. That was in Missouri, and at a 
time when Republican votes did not count much in that 
State unless thej were cast for Democrats, so the Repub- 
lican was excusable. This Republican supporter did not 
vote in the primaries, however, but in the grand jury, 
for, strange as it may seem, it was a grand jury which 
gave the Pike County statesman his first boost into politi- 
cal life. It was before the grand jury that Mr. Clark 
had been practising as prosecuting attorney, and so deeply 
was the jury impressed with his ability that it voted 
unanimously to nominate him for the Legislature, paid all 
the primary expenses, and had the satisfaction of seeing 
its judgment confirmed in the primaries and ratified at the 
election. 

Feom Pike County to Washington — It was in 1892 
that Mr. Clark was first elected to Congress. Two years 
later, when Missouri sent eleven Republicans to the House 
out of a delegation of fourteen, the future Democratic 
Speaker was defeated for reelection by a music teacher. 
And it was right there that Mr. Clark's indomitability 
went into action. He went to work Immediately to demon- 
strate to the Ninth Missouri District that the music 
teacher was out of harmony with tlie district, that he was 
a discordant note in the House. He promoted fugues and 
feuds enough to drive an ordinary music teacher insane. 
He convinced his district, and the beating that he gave to 
that professor of harmonies two years later would have 



VARIOUS OPINIONS 165 

been scandalous treatment to accord a kettledrum. Then 
and there the Ninth Missouri District acquired the habit 
of sending Champ Clark to Congress, and it has been doing 
it ever since. 

It has been said of Champ Clark that he is "a Democrat 
by instinct." It is certainly true that he has always been 
"agin the government," and there Is little reason to hope 
that as Democratic Speaker during a Republican adminis- 
tration anything will work his conversion. Early In his 
career as a member of the House he was appointed to the 
much coveted Foreign Affairs Committee, but he was not 
happy there. He found the Intricacies of foreign affairs 
as boring as Henry Cabot Lodge finds them interesting. 
He was wholly Incapable of putting himself In the place 
of the foreigner, of seeing through his eyes, or of perceiv- 
ing the significance which foreigners are likely to attach 
to little things. He has a large taste for figures, a certain 
grasp of economies, and an extraordinary memory for 
detail. Of literature, as such, at least for that large class 
of literature which makes demands on the imaginative 
faculties, the Pike County statesman is intolerant. In a 
word. Champ Clark lacks imagination. It was not until 
he had rendered long service In the House that he achieved 
his ambition to become a member of the Committee on 
Ways and Means, but once there he amply demonstrated 
his capacity for work. As a cross-examiner of witnesses 
he is incisive and penetrating, and when the tanfF bill was 
under consideration he rendered valuable service not only 



1 



166 CHAMP CLARK 

to his party but often to the Republican Chairman, Sereno 
Payne. 

As AN Orator. — It is as an orator, however, that Mr. 
Clark has achieved greatest distinction. Despite certain 
limitations, he is a really great orator. Mr. Justice 
Brewer, in his work, "Best Orations of the World," in- 
cluded Mr. Clark's eulogy of Gen. Frank P. Blair, and no 
one who has heard the Missouri statesman at his best can 
have failed to be entertained and sometimes instructed. 
Champ Clark has not only read the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, the Constitution, and Washington's Farewell 
Address, but he has also masticated, swallowed, and assimi- 
lated them. He once committed them to memory. Now he 
no longer recalls their phraseology, because he has made 
it his own, and thinks and speaks it. Occasionally, just by 
way of variety, he speaks the language of Patrick Henry, 
but even that he does unconsciously. But while he is an 
orator, he is not a rhetorician, and while he is often 
eloquent, it is, perhaps, in the running exchange of debate 
that he most shines. 

In action Champ Clark becomes enthused by his own 
ferv'or and emits oratorical pj^rotechnics like a Vesuvius 
on a rampage. Metaphor and invective, sarcasm and 
humor, are all at his command. As he works himself up 
to the forensic frenzy which usually characterizes his per- 
oration, the Republicans among his hearers should be 
writhing in their consciousness of guilt — and perhaps they 



VARIOUS OPINIONS 167 

would be, were they not so immensely entertained by the 
Missourian in action. Indeed, Champ Clark is always at 
his best in a fury of denunciation. Excoriating that ven- 
erable old figure of bygone Buckeye politics, Gen. Charles 
H. Grosvenor, he was in his element. And on such occa- 
sions he strove to emphasize his remarks by a singular 
gesture — perhaps posture would be the better word. Grip- 
ping each side of his desk tightly, he would crouch like a 
cat about to spring, and then slowly shake his hands from 
side to side as if he had his victim In his teeth. Occasion- 
ally General Grosvenor and Mr. Clark met on the Chau- 
tauqua platforms, and when they did the sparks flew as in 
an old-fashioned smithy. It is really unfortunate that, 
as Speaker, Mr. Clark will have so little opportunity to 
talk, for the chief task of the Speaker is to listen, not to 
speak. 

His Personal Side. — Personally Mr. Clark Is a genial, 
kindly man. It Is one of his most cherished recollections 
that when he was prosecuting attorney he let off with 
fines twenty-five young men, each indicted for his first of- 
fense, and each of whom he might have sent to the peni- 
tentiary, and it is with the utmost satisfaction that he re- 
lates that of the number twenty-four are good and useful 
citizens to-day. He is popular with his colleagues in the 
House, and he has a keen sense of humor, despite the fact 
that he asserts that a public man Is better off without 



168 CHAMP CLARK 

such sense ; that it is likely to be more hurtful than helpful 
to men in public life. 

Speaker Reed Mr. Clark once declared to be "in pure 
mentality one of the greatest Americans in history." 
Politically he was compelled to criticise Mr. Reed's some- 
what arbitrary control of the House. And yet it is en- 
tirely probable that none better than Mr. Clark appre- 
ciated the extraordinary conditions with which Mr. Reed 
was called upon to deal, and it would not be surprising 
if he largely sympathized with the drastic measures which 
the Speaker employed to combat filibustering tactics of 
an extraordinarily exasperating character. It is certainly 
a safe prediction that if Mr. Clark did not then entirely 
sympathize with the methods of the Maine statesman he 
will do so before he has long occupied the Speaker's chair. 

An Outside View of Clark and His District 

{In Ainslee^s Magazine, june, 1900) 

No one that has met the honorable Congressman from the 
Ninth Missouri would doubt that Champ Clark came from 
a part of the country as characterful as himself. His 
broad face, stout body, keen gray eyes, and restful manner 
mark him emphatically for the West. There is something 
in the pursed lips, set against even teeth, and broad- 
brimmed hat, pushed genially back upon the forehead, the 
heave of the body by which he rests, now on one foot, now 



VARIOUS OPINIONS 169 

on the other, that shows him to hail from a region where 
easy manners and aggressive independence are still the 
rule in the individual and not the exception. When he 
utters his slow, measured "I hope you all will excuse me," 
he settles conjecture. 

"You all" is good Missouri for you. In famous Pike 
County, where he lives, you will hear nothing better than 
this, and he gets his style from his constituents. 

The Ninth Missouri is proud of Champ Clark. The 
whole State admires him, but the Ninth considers him a 
fine type of itself. There you will hear him spoken of by 
his good, old, hide-bound Democratic supporters as you 
hear fathers speak of their sons. 

"Champ's a pretty able man," they will tell you, with 
mental reserve. "He's as smart as a whip." 

If you imagine this is poor praise, accuse Champ Clark 
of being a poor twig of Democracy. Then you will hear 
something which will make clear why he is invincible in his 
district. When Missourians of the old school like a man, 
they like him all over. 

"Oh, Clark's got good friends out here," one said to 
me. "His best ones 'ud go through hell and water to 
save him, I guess. He's as smart a man as you'd want 
for that job." 

To understand a political character of this sort we 
must understand his district. The average Congressman 
at Washington, neatly dressed, smooth-mannered, and 
pleasantly conversing upon broad American principles, 



170 CHAMP CLARK 

savors little of the crude condition from which he has 
sprung. In the luxurious atmosphere of Washington the 
rough country-trailer walks a different man. He meets 
a class who may never have seen the rough district with 
which he is so familiar. He enters an entirely different 
world, a world where his position is accepted, where the 
mea,ns by which he has risen are unrecogTiized. Here he 
is a Congressman, pure and simple, with all the dignity 
that attaches to the office, with all the smallness that it 
may indicate. 

Back of him may be, as in the present case, a country 
and a people wholly strange to the capital atmosphere. 
The land is of meager population, of crude habitation, of 
old-fashioned ideas, of simple, almost primitive amuse- 
ments. The long roads lie untraveled save by the hardest 
necessity. The fields may be cultivated in the crudest 
way. The majority may not see a railroad train once in 
three weeks. A daily newspaper may be a rarity, except 
in the case of the best local families. The fathers are 
rough and husky — their one comfort, their home; their 
one diversion, politics. The mothers are excellent house- 
wives, whose world consists of husband and children. The 
children, hale, quiet-mannered youngsters, have a drawl 
of voice and manner which would make their city cousins 
stare. Often they are studious, and of that solid stuff 
which reinforces the cities with brain and brawn, and gives 
to the world men of mark. When you find such a district 



VARIOUS OPINIONS 171 

you will sometimes find a man who represents it. Such a 
representative is Champ Clark. 

The honorable Congressman from the Ninth has a dis- 
trict which is as interesting as he is. It is one of the 
fifteen gerrymandered portions of Missouri which have 
sent to Washington such men as Dockery, of Gallatin, 
Cowherd, of Kansas City, Bland, of Lebanon. 

It was the Eighth, which adjoins Clark's district on the 
west, that, barring one term, kept Bland at Washing- 
ton from 1873 until the day of his death. It is the Third 
that has done nearly as well by Dockery. The Ninth is 
one which is gerrymandered, but not in Clark's favor. It 
has a great many more Democrats than it needs to elect 
a Congressman. 

"We was just a-wasting votes up here until we decided 
to help the Thirteenth," one white-haired patriarch said 
to me, "so we threw out two counties and took in Gas- 
conade and Crawford. They're naturally Republican, but 
when they's in with us they can't do much damage." 

These two sad-fated Republican counties now cast their 
votes in vain. A rousing 3,000 majority greets the Dem- 
ocratic nominee, whoever he may be, provided the Demo- 
crats are not quarreling among themselves, which happens 
not infrequently. 

In this district the voters are known personally to the 
leaders. The leaders are solid men of the community. 
An element of individuality comes into play, on which 
the leaders must count. The average citizen knows his 



172 CHAMP CLARK 

own district as he knows his best horse. He can tell you 
just what it can do politically and financially. He is 
proud of its towns and country districts, of its fertility 
and beauty. The man of the Ninth sees it in his mind's 
eye, a long, straggling line of counties shaped almost 
like the continent of Africa. He knows where the good 
towns are, where the rich valley's lie, where the streams 
run. He has heard of the political squabbles of this place, 
the financial difficulties of that. Jonesburg, Montgomerj'' 
County, is going to have a new opera house? So it is, 
to be sure. When you tell him that, it is of the same 
nature to him as information concerning his brother's eld- 
est boy's success. It is all family information. 

The residents of such districts are proud enough to 
want a good leader. It is the district they love, more 
than the Congressman who represents it; but when the 
Congressman arises, who, by the very qualities which they 
admire, distinguishes himself, who has somewhat about 
him of the atmosphere and soil which they are accustomed 
to, that man comes to embody for them the spirit of their 
local world. His manners are the manners of the district ; 
his sentiments are the sentiments of the district. He 
walks abroad shod as they are shod, and strong as they 
are strong. He comes to have their feelings, as well as 
their virtues, and at last he is their representative. No 
one can beat him. There is no need for any one to try. 

It takes a sterling sort of people to make a sterling 
leader. The men must have their independence, the women 



VARIOUS OPINIONS 173 

their virtue. Out in the Ninth they have both. One still 
finds family life there operating almost upon a patriarchal 
basis. It is a region of large families, as well as of large 
convictions. The father who has nine stalwart sons is not 
a rarity. 

"I just met Brother Weemans over here," said Con- 
gressman Clark, while canvassing Gasconade County in 
1896. It was during one of those long buggy rides over 
rough roads from one small town to another, and all sorts 
of topics were seized upon to relieve the tedium. "He's 
got nine strapping boys, and had 'em all there to shake 
hands with me. Said he wished he had nine girls, so he 
could make 'em all marry Democrats who would vote for 
me also. Good old man, Weemans is." There are families 
much larger and just as loyal. They live and propagate 
in one region, and finally become exceedingly numerous 
and of one name. There is a family of Tates in Mont- 
gomery County, seventy or more strong, all living in one 
neighborhood, and all Democrats. A family of Homans 
in another section of the district is equally numerous and 
equally Democratic. Family feeling does not end with 
one household. It extends to the homes of every son and 
daughter, and to the homes of their children and their 
children's children in turn. Speak of the Swart familj' 
out there and you are thought to be referring to several 
scores of Swarts, scattered all over the district. Family 
reunions are common, and embrace such multitudes that 



174 CHAMP CLARK 

camping out is resorted to, and a picnic indulged in, while 
they last. 

Champ Clark has little, if any, blood kin, as the word 
is there, but a vast number of political and social friends 
who are as close as blood could make them. Most of the 
Democrats of the nine counties claim a speaking acquaint- 
ance with him. Most of them have entertained him at one 
time or another. He has stopped at their gates, dined at 
their tables, slept for a night in their best spare bed- 
rooms. He has talked politics with the fathers, and en- 
couraged and strengthened the political views of the sons. 

Among his chief adherents you find men who have sacri- 
ficed not only time and labor, but also hard-earaed money, 
in the cause of their political idol. In almost every case 
they expect nothing and receive nothing. Their reward 
is the triumph of their affections and prejudice. 

"I went to my brother Morg," said one of Clark's sup- 
porters, in describing the latter's first Congressional fight, 
"and begged him to let up on Clark. 'It doesn't make 
any difference to you,' I said. 'Why do you help my 
enemies.'^ You know his enemies are my enemies. For 
God's sake, turn once now and help me.' " 

"Did he.?" I asked. 

"Yes, he did." 

"And why did you make such a fight for the man.'"' 

"I liked him. He's my friend. He is a friend of all my 
friends." 



VARIOUS OPINIONS 175 

In the nine counties there are but 153,000 people, 
60,000 of whom are gathered into small towns. The re- 
maining 93,000 are scattered over 3,000,000 acres of land. 
If all families were of the State's average size — five and 
one-half members — and they were evenly scattered over 
the district, there would be one such family to every 
two hundred acres. 



CHAPTER XIX 

Excerpts from Clark's Speeches and Lectures 

eulogy on francis preston blair 

(Delivered in the House of Representatives 

Februanj 4, 1899) 

Mr. Clark, of Missouri: jMr. Speaker, when Governor 
B. Gratz Brown, one of the most brilliant of all Missouri 
statesmen, on an historic occasion said, "Missouri is a 
grand State and deserves to be grandly governed," he 
uttered an immortal truth. He might have added with 
equal veracity, "She deserves to be grandly represented 
in the Congress of the United States," and she has been 
in the main, particularly in the Senate, where paucity of 
members and length of tenure more surely fix a man in the 
public eye than service in the House. 

Of Missouri's twenty-one Senators there were fourteen 
Democrats, one Whig, and six Republicans. Of one hun- 
dred and fifty-six years of Senatorial representation to 
which she has been entitled, two were not used, six fell 
to Whigs, twenty-two to Republicans, and one hundred 
and twenty-six to Democrats. 

This roster of Missouri Senators is an array of names 

176 



EXCERPTS FROM SPEECHES 177 

of which the nation, no less than the State, may well be 
proud. There are many great men — scarcely a small 
one — in the list. 

Missouri is proud of her immeasurable physical re- 
sources, which will one day make her facile princeps 
among her sisters ; but there is something else of which 
she is prouder still, and that is her splendid citizenship, 
consisting at this day of nearly four million industrious, 
intelligent, patriotic, progressive, law-abiding, God- 
fearing people. 

. When questioned as to her riches she could with pro- 
priety imitate the example and quote the words of Cor- 
nelia, the mother of the heroic Gracchi, and, pointing to 
her children, say truthfully and pridefully, "These are 
my jewels." 

In sending Thomas Hart Benton and the younger 
Francis Preston Blair to represent her forever in the great 
American Valhalla, where the effigies of a nation's immor- 
tal worthies do congregate, Missouri made a most happy, 
fitting selection from among a host of her distinguished 
sons. These two men complement each other to an 
extraordinary degree. Really their lives formed but one 
career — a great career — a career of vast import to the 
State and to the nation. Both were Southerners by birth ; 
both were soldiers of the Republic; both members of this 
House; both Senators of the United States; both added 
largely to American renown; both left spotless reputa- 
tions as a heritage to their countrymen. 



178 CHAMP CLARK 

In this era of good feeling it may seem ungracious to 
talk much about the Civil War, and may appear like 
"sweet bells jangled, out of tune"; but this is an historic 
occasion, Frank Blair is an histonc personage, and the 
truth should be told about him. All his deeds with which 
history will concern itself are those which he performed 
in matters pertaining to that unhappy period — either 
before, during, or after. A speech about him and without 
mention of these things would be like the play of "Hamlet" 
with the Prince of Denmark left out. 

His Birthplace. — Bom in the lovely blue-grass region 
of Kentucky, reared in Washington City, in the excite- 
ment and swirl of national politics, spending his man- 
hood's days in St. Louis, the great city of the Iron Crown, 
his opportunities for growth were of the best, and he 
developed according to the expectations of his most san- 
guine friends. 

Within a radius of seventy-five miles of Lexington, 
Kentucky, where Frank Blair first looked forth upon this 
glorious world, more orators of renown were bom or have 
exercised their lungs and tongues than upon any other 
plat of rural ground of the same size upon the habitable 
globe. 

Whether the inspiring cause is the climate, the soil, 
the water, or the limestone, I do not know, but the fact 
remains. 

SoLDiEE. — Frank Blair was a soldier of two wars. He 
received his "baptism of fire" during our brief but glorious 



EXCERPTS FROM SPEECHES 179 

conflict with Mexico, being a lieutenant in that small, 
heroic band of Missourians, who, under Col. Alexander 
W. Doniphan, made the astounding march to Santa Fe, 
Chihuahua, Sacramento, and Monterey — an achievement 
which added an empire to the Union and which threw into 
the shade that far-famed performance of Xenophon and 
his ten thousand which has been acclaimed by the histo- 
rians of twenty centuries. 

In the Civil War he began as a colonel, fought his way 
to a major-generalcy, and was pronounced by General 
Grant to be one of the two best volunteer officers in the 
service, John A. Logan, "the Black Eagle of Illinois," 
who married a Missouri wife, being the other. In Sher- 
man's famous march to the sea Blair commanded a corps, 
and was considered the Marshal Ney of that army. 

The Fight for Missouri. — Early impressions are 
never effaced; and it may be — who knows.'' — that the fact 
that when a child he sat upon the knee of Andrew Jack- 
son, received the kiss of hereditary friendship from his 
lips, and heard words of patriotism fall burning from his 
tongue, determined his course in the awful days of '61, 
for Jackson himself, could he have returned to earth in 
the prime of life, could not have acted a sterner or more 
heroic part than did his foster son. 

The fact that Andrew Jackson, Thomas Hart Benton, 
and the elder Francis Preston Blair were sworn friends 
most probably caused young Frank to settle in St. Louis, 
a performance which, though little noted at the time, in 



180 CHAMP CLARK 

all human probability kept Missouri in the Union, and 
thereby defeated the efforts of the Southern people for 
independence; for had it not been for Blair's cool cour- 
age, clear head, unquailing spirit, indefatigable industry, 
commanding influence, and rare foresight, the Southern 
sympathizers in Missouri would have succeeded in taking 
her into the Confederacy. 

When we consider the men who were against Blair it is 
astounding that he succeeded. To say nothing of scores, 
then unknown to fame, who were conspicuous soldiers in 
the Confederate army and who have since held high politi- 
cal position, arrayed against him were the Governor of 
the State, Claiborne F. Jackson ; the Lieutenant Governor, 
Thomas C. Reynolds ; ex-United States Senator and ex- 
Vice-President David R. Atchison ; United States Sena- 
tors Trusten Polk and James S. Green, the latter of whom 
had no superior in intellect or as a debater upon this con- 
tinent ; Waldo P. Johnson, elected to succeed Green in 
March, 1861, and the well-beloved ex-Governor and 
ex-Brigadier-General in the Mexican War, Sterling Price, 
by long odds the most popular man in the State. 

No man between the two oceans drew his sword with 
more reluctance, or used it with more valor, than "Old 
Pap Price." The statement is not too extravagant or 
fanciful for belief that had he been the sole and absolute 
commander of the Confederates who won the battle of 



EXCERPTS FROM SPEECHES 181 

Wilson's Creek, he would have rescued Missouri from the 
Unionists. 

The thing that enabled Blair to succeed was his settled 
conviction from the first that there would be war — a war 
of coercion. While others were hoping against hope that 
war could be averted, or, at least, that Missouri could be 
kept out of it, even if it did come — while others were mak- 
ing constitutional arguments ; while others were temporiz- 
ing and dallying — he acted. Believing that the questions 
at issue could be settled only by the sword, and also believ- 
ing in Napoleon's maxim, "God fights on the side of the 
heaviest battalions," he grimly made ready for the part 
which he intended to play in the bloody drama. 

A Leader. — The old Latin dictum runs, "Poeta nasci- 
tur, non jit" The same is true of the leader of men — he 
is born, not made. 

What constitutes the quality of leadership, Mr. 
Speaker.'' You do not know. I do not know. None of us 
knows. No man can tell. 

Talent, genius, learning, courage, eloquence, greatness 
in many fields we may define with something approximat- 
ing exactness ; but who can inform us as to the constituent 
elements of leadership.'' We all recognize the leader the 
moment we behold him ; but what entitles him to that dis- 
tinction is, and perhaps must forever remain, one of the 
unsolved mysteries of psychology. 

Talent, even genius, does not make a man a leader, for 
some men of the profoundest talents, others of the most 



182 CHAMP CLARK 

dazzling genius, have been servile followers, and have de- 
based their rich gifts from God to the flattery of despots. 
Most notable among those was Lord Bacon, the father of 
the inductive philosophy, who possessed the most exquisite 
intellect ever housed in a human skull, and whose spirit 
was so abject and so groveling that he was not unjustly 
described in that blistering, scornful couplet by Alexander 
Pope : 

"If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shin'd, 
"The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind!" 

Courage is not synonymous with the quality of leader- 
ship, though necessary to it, for some of the bravest sol- 
diers that ever met death upon the battlefield and defied 
him to his face were amazingly lacking in that regard. 

Learning does not render a man a leader, for some of 
the greatest scholars of whom history tells were wholly 
without influence over their fellow-men. Eloquence does 
not make a leader, for some of the world's greatest orators, 
among them Cicero, have been the veriest cravens ; and 
no craven can lead men. 

Lideed, learning, eloquence, courage, talents, and ge- 
nius altogether do not make a leader. 

But whatever the quality' is, people recognize it in- 
stinctively and inevitably follow the man who possesses it. 

Frank Blair was a natural leader. 

Yet during his career there were finer scholars in Mis- 
souri than he, though he was an excellent scholar, a grad- 



EXCERPTS FROM SPEECHES 183 

iiate of Princeton ; there were more splendid orators, 
though he ranked with the most convincing and persua- 
sive; there were profounder lawyers, though he stood high 
at the bar; there were better mixers, though he had cordial 
and winning manners ; there were men, perhaps, of 
stronger mental force, though he was amply endowed 
with brains, so good a judge of human nature as Abraham 
Lincoln saying of him, "He has abundant talents" ; there 
were men as brave, though he was of the bravest, but as a- 
leader he overtopped them all. 

Belie\^ng sincerely that human slavery was wrong 
•per se, and that it was of most evil to the States where 
it existed, he fought it tooth and nail, not from sympathy 
for the negroes so much as from affection for the whites, 
and he created the Republican party in Missouri before 
the Civil War — a most hazardous performance in that day 
and latitude. At its close, when in his judgment his party 
associates had become the oppressors of the people and 
the enemies of liberty, he left them, and, lifting in his 
mighty arms the Democracy, which lay bleeding and 
swooning in the dust, he breathed into its nostrils the 
breath of life — another performance of extraordinary 
hazard. 

This man was of the stuff out of which martyrs are 
made, and he would have gone griml}^ undauntedly, un- 
flinchingly, and defiantly to the block, the scaffold, or the 
stake in defense of any cause which he considered just. 
Though he was imperious, tempestuous, dogmatic, and 



184 CHAMP CLARK 

impetuous, though no danger could swerve him from the 
path of duty, though he gave tremendous blows to his 
antagonists and received many of tlie same kind, he had 
infinite compassion for the helpless and the weak, and to 
the end his heart remained as tender as a little child's. 

When he came out of the arm3^, with his splendid mili- 
tary and civil record, it may be doubted whether there 
was an official position, however exalted, beyond his reach, 
if he had remained with the Republicans. I have always 
believed, and do now believe, that by severing his connec- 
tion with them he probably threw away the vice-presidency 
— possibly the presidency itself — a position for which 
most statesmen pant even as the heart panteth for the 
waterbrook. During his long, stormy, and vicissitudinous 
career he always unhesitatingly did what he thought was 
right for right's sake, leaving the consequences to take 
care of themselves. That he was ambitious of political 
preferment there can be no question ; but office had no 
charms for him, if it involved sacrifice of principle or com- 
promise of conscience. 

This gi-eat man, for great he was beyond even the 
shadow of a doubt, enjoyed the distinction unique among 
statesmen of being hated and loved in turn by all Mis- 
sourians, of changing his political affiliations violently 
twice long after he had passed the formative and effer^'es- 
cent period of youth, and, while spending nearly his entire 
life in the hurly-burly of politics, of dying at last mourned 
by every man and woman in the State whose good opinion 



I 



k 



EXCERPTS FROM SPEECHES 185 

was worth possessing. In that respect his career is with- 
out a parallel. Bom a Democrat, he served in this House 
as a Republican, in the Senate as a Democrat, and died 
finally in the political faith of his fathers. 

Change of party affiliations by a man of mature age 
is nearly always a painful performance — generally injuri- 
ous to his fame; but Blair's two complete changes of base 
appear to have increased the respect in which men held 
him, and the secret of this anomaly is that in each instance 
he quit a triumphant and arrogant majority, with which 
he was prime favorite, to link his fortunes with a feeble 
and hopeless minority — proof conclusive of his rectitude 
of purpose; whereas, if he had abandoned a minority to 
join a majority, his honesty of motive might have well 
been impugned. 

Benton's scorn of his opponents was so lofty and so 
galling, the excoriations he inflicted — aye, lavished — upon 
them bred such rancor in their hearts, the lash with which 
he scourged them left such festering wounds, that they 
never forgave him until they knew that he was dead — 
dead as Julius Caesar — dead beyond all cavil. Then they 
put on sackcloth and ashes and gave him the most mag- 
nificent funeral ever seen west of the Mississippi. 

Blair's was a happier fate than that of his illustrious 
prototype and exemplar. While from the day of his re- 
turn from the Mexican War to the hour of his retirement 
from the Senate, he was in the forefront of every political 
battle in Missouri — and nowhere on earth were political 



186 CHAMP CLARK 

wars waged with more ungovernable fury — such were his 
endearing qualities that the closing years of his life were 
as placid as a summer evening, and he died amid the 
lamentations of a mighty people. Republicans seemed to 
remember only the good that he had done them, forgetting 
the injuries, while Democrats forgot the injuries that he 
had inflicted upon them and remembered only the invalu- 
able service that he had rendered. Union veterans named 
a Grand Army post for him ; Confederates proudly call 
their boys Frank Blair, and his fellow-citizens, without 
regard to creed or party, erected his statue of heroic size 
in Forest Park to perpetuate his fame to coming genera- 
tions. 

The Boeder States During the War. — Gen. Wil- 
liam Tecumseh Sherman once said "War is hell!" Those 
who lived in the "border States" during our Civil War 
and who are old enough to remember the tragic events of 
that bloody but heroic epoch in our annals, will with one 
accord indorse his idea, if not his sulphurous language. 

It was easy to be a Union man in Massachusetts. It 
was not profitable to be anything else. It was easy to be 
a Confederate in South Carolina. It was not safe to be 
anything else. But in Kentucky, Missouri, and the other 
border States it was perilous to be the one thing or the 
other. Indeed, it was dangerous to be neither and to sit 
on the fence. 

I was a child when Sumter was fired on, living in Wash- 
ington County, Kentucky. I remember an old fellow from 



EXCERPTS FROM SPEECHES 187 

whom the Union raiders took one horse and the Confed- 
erate raiders another. So when a third party of soldiers 
met him in the road and inquired whether he were a Union 
man or a rebel, being dubious as to their army affiliations, 
he answered diplomatically, "I am neither one nor the 
other, and very little of that," and thereby lost his third 
and last horse to Confederates disguised in blue uniforms. 

The Kentuckians are a peculiar people — the most hos- 
pitable, the most emotional, the kindest-hearted under the 
sun ; but they are bom warriors. A genuine son of "the 
Dark and Bloody Ground" is in his normal condition only 
when fighting. It seems to me that somebody must have 
sown that rich land with dragon's teeth in the early days. 
To use a sentence indigenous to the soil, "A Kentuckian 
^vdll fight at the drop of the hat and drop it himself." So 
the war was his golden opportunity. He went to death 
as to a festival. Nearly every able-bodied man in the 
State — and a great many not able-bodied — not only of 
military age but of any age, young enough or old enough 
to squeeze in, took up arms on one side or the other, and 
sometimes on both. 

Neighbor against neighbor, father again son, brother 
against brother, slave against master, and frequently wife 
against husband; the fierce contention entered even into 
theology, and blotted out the friendships of a lifetime. 

Men who were bora and reared on adjoining farms, who 
had attended the same schools, played the same games, 
courted the same girls, danced in the same sets, belonged 



188 CHAMP CLARK 

to the same lodges, and worshiped in the same churches, 
suddenly went gunning for one another as remorselessly as 
red Indians — only they had a clearer vision and a surer 
aim. From the mouth of the Big Sandy to the mouth of 
the Tennessee, there was not a square mile in which some 
awful act of violence did not take place. 

Kentucky has always been celebrated for, and cursed 
by, its bloody feuds, feuds which cause the Italian ven- 
detta to appear a holiday performance in comparison. Of 
course, the war was the evening-up time, and many a man 
became a violent Unionist because the ancient enemies of 
his house were Southern sympathizers, and vice versa. 
Some of them could have given pointers to Fra Diavolo 
himself. 

As all the evil passions of men were aroused and all 
restraints of propriety as well as all fear of law were re- 
moved, every latent tendency toward crime was warmed into 
life. The land swarmed with cutthroats, robbers, thieves, 
firebugs, and malefactors of the helpless, who committed 
thousands of brutal and heinous crimes — in the name of 
the Union or of the Southern Confederacy. 

I witnessed only one battle during the Civil War. A 
line in Gen. Basil W. Duke's entertaining book, "Morgan 
and His Men," is all that is vouchsafed to it in the litera- 
ture of the war, but surely it was the most astounding 
martial caper ever cut since Nimrod invented the military 
art, and it fully illustrates the Kentuckian's inherent 
and ineradicable love of fishtins:. 



EXCERPTS FROM SPEECHES 189 

I saw seven home guards charge the whole of Morgan's 
cavalry — the very flower of Kentucky chivalry. 

I was working as a farmhand for one John Call, who 
was the proud owner of several fine horses of the famous 
"copper-bottom" breed. 

Morgan had, perhaps, as good an eye for a "saddler" 
as was ever set in human head, and during those troublous 
days his mind was sadly mixed on the meum and tuum 
when it came to equines — a remark applicable to many 
others beside Morgan, on both sides at that. 

Call, hearing that Morgan was coming, and knowing 
his penchant for the noblest of quadrupeds, ordered me to 
mount "in hot haste" and "take the horses to the woods." 

Just as I had climbed upon a magnificent chestnut 
sorrel, fit for a king's charger, and was rounding up the 
others, I looked up and in the level rays of the setting 
summer sun saw Morgan's cavalry in "all the pride, pomp, 
and circumstance of glorious war," riding up the broad 
gravel road on the backbone of a long high ridge, half a 
mile to the south. Fascinated by the glittering array, 
boylike, I forgot Call and the peril of his horses, and 
watched the gay cavalcade. 

Suddenly I saw seven horsemen emerge from the little 
village of Mackville, and ride furiously down the turnpike 
to within easy pistol range of the Confederates and open 
fire. I could hear the crack of the revolvers, and see the 
flash and smoke, and when Morgan's advance guard fell 
back on the main body, I observed that one riderless horse 



190 CHAMP CLARK 

went back with them and that only six home guards rode 
back to Mackville in lieu of the seven who had ridden forth 
to battle. 

Morgan's command halted, deployed in battle line, and 
rode slowly up the hill, while I rode a great deal faster to 
the woods. 

The home guards had shot one man out of his saddle 
and captured him, and Morgan had captured one of them. 
Next morning the home guards, from their forest fast- 
ness, sent in a flag of truce and regularly negotiated an 
exchange of prisoners, according to the rules in such cases 
made and provided. 

Of course, Morgan would have paid no attention to 
the seven men, but he supposed that even liis own native 
Kentucky never nurtured seven dare-devils so reckless as 
to do a thing like that unless they had an army back of 
them. 

I have often thought of that matchless deed of daring, 
and can say, as did Gen. Pierre Bosquet of the charge of 
the Light Brigade at the battle of Balaklava, "It is mag- 
nificent, but it is not war." 

Years afterward one of the ^seven was sending his chil- 
dren to school to me. After I became well acquainted 
with him, one day I said to him, "Gibson, I have always 
wanted to know what made you seven fellows charge Mor- 
gan." "Oh," he replied, "we were all full of fighting 
whisky" — an explanation which explained not only that 
fight, but thousands more. 



EXCERPTS FROM SPEECHES 191 

If that splendid feat of arms had been performed in 
New England by New Englanders, the world could 
scarcely contain the books which would have been written 
about it. It would have been chronicled in history and 
chanted in song as an inexhaustible theme. 

If Frank Blair had never captured Camp Jackson — for 
it was Blair who conceived and carried out that great 
strategic movement, and not Gen. Nathaniel Lyon, of New 
England, as the Northern war books say — Missouri would 
have joined the Confederacy under the lead of Gov. Clai- 
borne F. Jackson and Gen. Sterling Price, the famous 
soldier, and, with her vast resources to command, Lee's 
soldiers would not have been starved and frozen into a 
surrender. 

If the government built monuments to soldiers in pro- 
portion to what they really accomplished for the Union 
cause, Frank Blair's would tower proudly among the 
loftiest. Camp Jackson is slurred over with an occasional 
paragraph in the history books, but it was the turning 
point in the war west of the Mississippi, and it was the 
work of Frank Blair, the Kentuckian, the Missourian, the 
slave-owner, the patrician, the leonine soldier, the pa- 
triotic statesman. 

Some day a Tacitus, Sismondi, or Macaulay will write 
a truthful history of our Civil War — the bloodiest chapter 
in the book of time — and when it is written the Kentucky 
and Missouri heroes, both Union and Confederate, will be 
enrobed in immortal glory. 



192 CHAMP CLARK 

It is said that figures will not lie, and there they are: 
To the Union armies Missouri contributed 109,111 sol- 
diers; Kentucky, 75,760; Maryland, 46,638; Tennessee, 
81,092; and West Virginia, 32,068 — ^making a grand 
total of 298,669. 

In Missouri the war was waged with unspeakable bit- 
terness, sometimes with inhuman cruelty. It was fought 
by men in single combat, in squads, in companies, in regi- 
ments, in great armies ; in the open, in fortified towns, and 
in ambush ; under the Stars and Stripes, under the Stars 
and Bars, and under the black flag. The arch-fiend him- 
self seems to have been on the field in person, inspiring, 
directing, commanding. Up in north Missouri Gen. John 
McNeil took twelve innocent men out and shot them in 
cold blood, because it was supposed that some bush- 
whacker had killed a Union man. That is known in local 
history as "the Palmyra massacre," and has damned John 
McNeil "to everlasting fame." It turned out afterward 
that the Union man was still alive, and so the twelve men 
had died in vain — even according to the hard rule of 
lex talionis. 

At Centralia one day a Wabash train containing more 
than thirty Union soldiers was captured by Bill Anderson, 
a guerilla chief, who had sustained some grievous personal 
injury at the hands of the Unionists, and whose blood 
some subtle mental alchem}' had converted into gall. He 
deliberately took them out and shot them every one, as if 
they had been so many wolves. 



EXCERPTS FROM SPEECHES 193 

Having completed that gory job, he marched out to a 
skirt of timber, about a mile from town, and camped at 
the foot of a long, gentle prairie slope. Shortly after- 
ward a certain Colonel Johnson, with a body of Union 
cavalry, followed him and took position on the ridge of 
the prairie. The sight of them made Anderson wild with 
delight, and whetted his appetite for blood; so he 
mounted his eighty men — the most superb horsemen in 
the world, who, with bridle reins between their teeth and 
a navy revolver in each hand, rode up on Johnson's one 
hundred and sixty men, whom he had foolishly dismounted, 
and, firing to right and left, killed one hundred and fort}'- 
three of them, and would have killed the other seventeen 
if they could have been caught. Only one man was taken 
alive, and he was badly wounded, the legend in the neigh- 
borhood being that he saved himself by giving the Ma- 
sonic sign of distress. 

Such are samples of the Civil War in Missouri and 
Kentucky. 

The survivors of those cruel days. Union and Confed- 
erate, are now living side by side, cultivating assiduously 
the arts of peace in the imperial commonwealth of Mis- 
souri — the most delectable place for human habitation 
beneath the stars. 

A Pioneer Peacemaker. — Lately we have heard a vast 
deal of eloquence about a reunited country. Thirty-two 
years after Appomattox men are accounted orators, 
statesmen, and philanthropists, because they grandilo- 



194 CHAMP CLARK 

quently declare that at last the time has arrived to bury 
the animosities of the Civil War in a grave upon whose 
headstone shall be inscribed, "No resurrection." I would 
not detract even in the estimation of a hair from the fame 
of these eleventh hour pacificators. I humbly and fer- 
vently thank Almighty God that the country is reunited. 

When I look into the faces of my little children, my 
heart swells with ineffable pride to think that they are citi- 
zens of this great Republic, one and indivisible, which is 
destined not for a day, but for all time, and which will be 
the crowning glory and dominating influence of all the 
centuries yet to be. But if we applaud these ex post facto 
peacemakers, and shed tears of joy over their belated 
pathos, what shall be our meed of praise, the measure of 
our gratitude, the manifestation of our admiration, the 
expression of our love, for Frank Blair, the magnificent 
Missourian, the splendid American, who, with his military 
laurels fresh upon him, within a few days after Lee sur- 
rendered, returned to his State, which had been ravaged 
by fire and sword, holding aloft the olive-branch, proclaim- 
ing to the world that there were no rebels any more, that 
his fellow-citizens who had fought for the South were 
entitled to equal respect and equal rights with other citi- 
zens, and that real peace m-ust "tinkle on the shepherd's 
bells and sing among the reapers" of Missouri? He took 
the ragged and defeated Confederates by the hand and, 
in the words of Abraham to Lot, said, "We be brethren." 



I 



EXCERPTS FROM SPEECHES 195 

"The truly brave 
"When they behold the brave oppressed with odds, 
"Are touched with a desire to shield and save." 

It seems to me that the very angels in heaven, looking 
down with approving eyes upon his magnificent conduct, 
must have sung, In full chorus, the song of nineteen hun- 
dred years ago, "On earth peace, good-will toward men." 

King Solomon says : "To everything there is a season, 
and a time to every purpose under the heaven: a time to 
kill, and a time to heal." 

In the time for killing Frank Blair was one of the most 
persistent of fighters. When the time for healing came, 
he was one of the first to pour the balm of consolation into 
bruised hearts and to bind up the nation's wounds. 

In the army he was one of the favorite lieutenants of 
Ulysses Simpson Grant, who, with knightly honor, reso- 
lutely and courageously kept his plighted faith to Lee, 
thereby preventing an aftermath of death at the very 
thought of which the world grows pale. 

In the fierce and all-perv^adlng light of history, which 
beats not upon thrones alone, but upon all high places as 
well, Blair will stand side by side with the invincible sol- 
dier who said "Let us have peace" — the noblest words that 
ever fell from martial lips. 

PRESIDENT TAFt's VETO OF THE ■VVOOIi SCHEDULE 

(August 18, 1911) 
The Speaker pro tempore [Mr. Underwood] : The 



196 CHAMP CLARK 

Chair recognizes the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. 
Clark]. [Applause on the Democratic side.] 

Mr. Clark, of Missouri : Mr. Speaker, I fully agree 
with my well-beloved friend, the gentleman from Illinois 
[Mr. Mann], that the growth of this country since I860, 
in wealth and in every other respect, has been phenomenal. 
No man rejoices In that more than I do. I permit no 
living human being to be more patriotic than I am. [Ap- 
plause on the Democratic side.] I suppose his figures are 
correct, but the gentleman leaves out of his calculations 
the most important element of growth in the United States 
since 1860, and that Is the growth in population [ap- 
plause on the Democratic side] ; and surely no Republican 
will dare to claim that the Republicans begat all that in- 
crease in population. [Applause on the Democratic side.] 
Democrats did their full share in that regard. Who cre- 
ated this wealth.'' Democrats had as much to do with 
increasing It as the Republicans had. [Applause on the 
Democratic side.] It makes me weary to hear people talk 
about somebody's wanting to destroy the industries and 
prosperity of this land. It is a lie. [Loud applause on 
the Democratic side.] No sane man wants to Injure in 
the estimation of a hair any legitimate Industry of this 
country. [Applause en the Democratic side.] That that 
charge Is a thing Incredible I have contended always, and 
especially since we carried the House and had the responsl- 
blHty placed upon us. We all want the industries of the 
land to prosper. It Is our country as well as yours ; our 



EXCERPTS FROM SPEECHES 197 

children must live here as well as yours ; we have as great a 
stake in the prosperity of the Republic as you have; and, 
in the language of Tiny Tim, "God bless us, every one." 
[Applause on the Democratic side.] 

The President has the constitutional right to veto this 
bill if he wanted to do so. I am not quarreling with him 
about that. I am, as his personal friend, lamenting his 
lack of wisdom. [Applause on the Democratic side.] He 
has raised an issue which will rage with unabated fury 
imtil the close of the polls in November, 1912. [Applause 
on the Democratic side.] We most cheerfully welcome 
that issue. We will meet the President and his stand-pat 
cohorts at Philippi. You gentlemen talk about our put- 
ting the President in a hole. We did not have to do so ; 
he has done it for himself. [Applause on the Democratic 
side.] 

But, nevertheless and notwithstanding, the gentleman 
from Kentucky [Mr. James] stated the literal historic 
truth when he said that the right of veto is a remnant of 
the royal prerogative. He was correct also when he stated 
that no English sovereign has dared to exercise the veto 
power in something like two hundred years. If George 
the Fifth should veto an important measure he would lose 
his crown and his throne and be sent on his "travels," as 
Charles the Second facetiously denominated his banish- 
ment. My good friend from Tennessee [Mr. Austin], 
who nominated me for President — and I rejoice in the 
fact that the Republican Members of this House feel as 



198 CHAMP CLARK 

kindly toward me personally as the Democrats do [ap- 
plause] — it is a matter of infinite pride with me — the 
gentleman got this Tariff Board business wrong. The 
gentleman from Alabama [Mr. Underwood] and myself 
never advocated this Tariff Board. [Applause on the 
Democratic side.] We never voted for it, I will tell you 
what we did advocate and what we did vote for, and that 
is to make that board a board of real experts and then 
make it responsive to the House of Representatives in 
general and to the Ways and Means Committee in par- 
ticular. [Applause on the Democratic side.] I am will- 
ing to do that now. I am not going to say anything 
derogatory of this Tariff Board, but I am going to say 
what I think, as I always do. The gentleman from New 
York [Mr. Payne] and the gentleman from Pennsyl- 
vania [Mr. Dalzell] and all the rest of the Republican 
members of the Committee on Ways and Means who served 
on that committee in the Sixtieth and Sixty-first Con- 
gresses, when the Payne-Aldrich bill was framed and 
passed, and the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Cannon], 
who, while he was not present when the first tariff bill 
was made in 1789, has been present at nearly all the rest 
of them [laughter] ; and the gentleman from Alabama 
[Mr. Underwood], and the gentleman from Texas [Mr. 
Randell], and the gentleman from New York [Mr. Har- 
rison], and the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Brant- 
ley], who were also on the old Ways and Means Commit- 
tee — any one of them knows more about the tariff to-day 



I 



EXCERPTS FROM SPEECHES 199 

than that entire Tariff Board rolled together. [Applause 
on the Democratic side.] I name only the old members; 
but I will say that the new Democratic members of the 
Ways and Means Committee were selected for their fitness 
for such work; and I desire to bear witness in this distin- 
guished presence to the fact that no set of men ever 
worked harder, more persistently, or more painstakingly 
in the discharge of a duty than have the Democratic mem- 
bers of the committee in revising Schedule K and the cot- 
ton schedule. They all deserve well of the House and of 
the country. I am rather inclined to the opinion that 
my distinguished friend from Illinois [Mr. Mann] and 
myself know something about tariff bills, too. [Applause 
on the Democratic side.] He voted against the Payne 
tariff bill — bless his heart for doing it ! [Applause on the 
Democratic side.] I yielded him twenty minutes time to 
make his speech, the best one he ever made in his life. 
[Applause on the Democratic side.] 

The members of the Tariff Board are, no doubt, most 
excellent and learned gentlemen ; but whatever else they 
may be, they are not tariff experts. To hear certain per- 
sons tell it, all Senators and Representatives in Congress 
are idiots, utterly ignorant of the tariff question, and 
should not be permitted to do anything touching the 
tariff except to register the decrees of the Tariff Board 
of non-experts. I throw out this gentle hint: If the 
Tariff Board is to be used as the President is using it in 
this case, to dela}'^ tariff revision instead of expediting it, 



200 CHAMP CLARK 

it will have a short shrift, as certain as grass grows or 
water runs. The Tariff Board, if it continues to exist, 
should be made the servant and not the master of the 
Representatives of the people. Why do not the little Solo- 
mons, who go about asseverating that Congress is com- 
posed of a lot of ignoramuses on the tariff, come to Con- 
gress themselves and pass a model tariff bill.'' They do 
not come for the all-sufficient reason that they cannot get 
votes enough. The people declared last November that 
they desired tariff revision, and they will not be enamored 
of those who block that work. 

The gentleman from Kansas [Mr. Campbell] voted for 
this bill. What change has come o'er the spirit of liis 
dream? Is it the sweet odor of the fleshpots of Egypt or 
not? [Applause on the Democratic side.] These gentle- 
men supporting the President's veto message have all said 
— every one of them who made a speech that I have 
heard — that this wool bill is unconsidered. The stand- 
patters are unanimous on that proposition. 

I do not propose to have that kind of a statement go 
unchallenged to the country, because it is absolutely un- 
true. What happened? We called a Democratic caucus 
of the Democratic members-elect of this House on the 19th 
day of January. The purpose of that proceeding was to 
select the Democratic members of the Committee on Waj's 
and Means, that they might go to work preparing tariff 
bills. That was before anybody dreamed of this extra 
session. Some of the newspaper Republican brethren said 



EXCERPTS FROM SPEECHES 201 

it was my "crazy scheme," but it worked like a charm. 
We chose the Democratic members of the Ways and Means 
Committee, and they went to work and spent nearly three 
months preparing this wool bill. [Applause on the Demo- 
cratic side.] I defy my distinguished friend from New 
York [Mr. Payne] to state that he and his committee 
ever spent three months on any one schedule in the tariff 
bill. [Applause on the Democratic side.] 

Mr. Payne: I wish to say that we spent more than 
ten times as much time on this woolen schedule than you 
did. 

Mr. Clark, of Missouri: When was it.'' When did you 
spend it.'' I will give you a piece of history you seem to 
have forgotten. A tariff bill has fourteen schedules in it. 
You and I and the rest of your committee began consider- 
ing the Payne bill with the fourteen schedules on the 11th 
day of November, and you reported that bill to this 
House, with the fourteen schedules, on the 18th day of 
March. [Applause on the Democratic side.] 

Mr. Payne : I commenced the preparation of that bill 
more than a year before the committee met. 

Mr. Clark, of Missouri: And so did we, bless your 
soul. I have been preparing for the wool bill and other 
tariff for the last twenty years. [Applause on the Demo- 
cratic side.] 

Mr. Payne: But I want to ask the gentleman what 
that has to do with this mongrel thing that comes from the 
conference committee? 



202 CHAMP CLARK 

Mr. Claek, of Missouri: After the House considered 
this bill the Senate considered it. The gentlemen had to 
give up a good deal of his own bill two years ago, and 
sulked, and swore, and was peeved because he had to 
yield. That is the truth. 

Mr. Payne: Well, he did not yield the whole thing. 

Mr. Clark, of Missouri : You yielded all you could. 

Another thing, they say that we are playing politics. 
Whenever any man stands up and undertakes to do any- 
thing for the benefit of the great masses of people he is 
denounced by the "interests" as a demagogue and is 
charged with playing politics. But to stand up and ad- 
vocate the cause of the "interests" is the highest evidence 
of statesmanship. As far as I am individually concerned, 
I sprang from the loins of the common people, God bless 
them, and I am one of them. I labored with my hands in my 
youth, and would do it again to-morrow if I had to do so ; 
and I unhesitatingly take my stand with the consumers of 
the land as against the "interests." 

The President desires to have tariff legislation post- 
poned till his Tariff Board can tutor him up sufficiently 
to write a tariff bill, which when we consider his multifari- 
ous and onerous duties and his passion for long distance 
traveling and frequent speechraaking, we must perforce 
conclude would be a far-away day in the sweet by and by. 
We do not want the people to suffer that long. 

The President made a famous speech at Winona, Minn. 
The only part of that speech which was any good [laugh- 



EXCERPTS FROM SPEECHES 203 

ter] was that part of it in which he said the wool schedule 
was too high and ought to be reduced. [Applause on the 
Democratic side.] 

Here are his exact words on that celebrated occasion: 

"With respect to the wool schedule, I agree that it is too 
high and that it ought to have been reduced, and that it 
probably represents considerably more than the difference 
between the cost of production abroad and the cost of pro- 
duction here. The difficulty about the woolen schedule is 
that there were two contending factions early in the his- 
tory of Republican tariffs, to wit, woolgrowers and the 
woolen manufacturers, and that finally, many years ago, 
they settled on a basis by which wool in the grease should 
have 11 cents a pound, and by wliich allowance should be 
made for the shrinkage of the washed wool in the differen- 
tial upon woolen manufactures. The percentage of duty 
was very heavy — quite beyond the difference in the cost 
of production, which was not then regarded as a necessary 
or proper limitation upon protective duties." 

Those words sank deep into the minds of the American 
people. They made them the basis of hope for cheaper 
and warmer blankets and clothing. Now, so far as in him 
lies, the President dashes those fond hopes to the ground ; 
but what's writ is writ, and those presidential words are 
part of the liistory of the Republic. 

It is asked why we took the wool schedule first. I will 
tell you. We took it because the President said that it 
ought to be reduced [applause on the Democratic side], 



204 CHAMP CLARK 

because we faced a hostile Senate and faced a hostile Presi- 
dent. This bill is not what I would have written if I had 
had carte blanche; it is not what the gentleman from 
Alabama [Mr. Underwood] would have written; it is not 
what any of us would have written ; but we undertook to 
get a bill that would have the best chance possible of 
passing the ordeal of the House, the ordeal of the Senate, 
and the ordeal of the White House. [Applause on the 
Democratic side.] I was certain that the President would 
sign the bill cutting down the wool tariff; we took him at 
his word. That is the head and front of our offending in 
putting the revision of the wool schedule first. I never did 
believe he would veto it until the last two or three days. 
Then, we took the cotton schedule next, because it, too, is 
a textile schedule. I am violating no secret in stating that 
so soon as the revised cotton schedule was through the 
House, the Democratic members of the Ways and Means 
Committee began industriously to prepare the iron and 
steel schedule revision, having previously collected a large 
assortment of information on that subject. 

We welcome the issue. We are not afraid to go to the 
people on it. We know that we stand for right and truth 
and justice. [Applause on the Democratic side.] The 
gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Mann] quotes .^sop's 
Fables, ^sop was, perhaps, the greatest writer of fables 
that ever lived ; but nobody ever rated him as an authority 
on economics till the gentleman from Illinois arose to-day. 
We have no desire to kill the goose that lays the golder 



EXCERPTS FROM SPEECHES 205 

eggs, as the gentleman seems to think. What we do desire 
is that a few shall not monopolize the golden eggs, but 
that they shall be distributed more equitably among the 
people of the land. The most important problem that 
good, wise, and patriotic men have to solve is a fair dis- 
tribution of the profits of business ; and blessed be the 
name of the man forever who achieves the solution which is 
just. 

The Globe-Democrat said that I had come around to a 
tariff on wool because I had heard the bleating of 134,000 
sheep in my district. I tell you what I did hear. I heard 
the cry of 93,000,000 American citizens for cheaper and 
better clothing. The great desire of my heart is to give 
them some relief from their burden of taxation which they 
have borne for lo ! these many years. [Loud and pro- 
longed applause on the Democratic side.] 

EULOGY ON JOHN W. DANIEL 

(June 24, 1911) 

Mr. Clark, of Missouri: Mr. Speaker, from the begin- 
|ning Virginia has been rich in great men — great states- 
men, great orators, great jurists, great soldiers. So long 
as the world exists the names of her illustrious sons will 
be among the noblest on fame's eternal beadroll. 

Patrick Henry precipitated the Revolution ; Thomas 
Jeiferson penned the Declaration ; Georr^e Washington 



206 CHAMP CLARK 

made that Declaration good on Yorktown's blood-stained 
heights ; James Madison was "father of the Constitution" ; 
and John Marshall its chief expounder. Her bill of rights, 
written by George Mason, has been considered a model 
for more than a century and a quarter. These were fol- 
lowed by a long line of men, distinguished in peace and 
in war, whose records are among the precious treasures 
of the Republic. 

John Warwick Daniel ranks high among Virginia's 
worthies. So far as the public is concerned, he appeared 
in a fourfold character — soldier, lawyer, author, orator. 
The universal testimony of his companions in arms is that 
he was a fine soldier. His brethren of the Virginia bar 
bear witness that he was a successful practitioner of the 
noblest of professions. Lawyers and courts everywhere 
cite his law books as standard authorities. All the world 
knows that he was one of the foremost orators of his 
time, and it is his oratory more than anything else which 
will perpetuate his fame to coming generations. He was 
richly blessed with the divine gift of moving men's minds 
and hearts by the power of spoken words. He was lavishly 
endowed by nature with the elements and qualities which 
constitute an orator. Some men are so ugly and ungainly 
that it is a positive advantage to them as public speakers 
by reason of the pleasurable surprise which their eloquence 
creates. Others are so handsome and prepossessing that 
they win the hearts of their audience before they have 
opened their lips. To the latter category John Warwick 



EXCERPTS FROM SPEECHES 207 

Daniel undoubtedly belonged. Of commanding presence, 
with a handsome and leonine countenance, courtly manners, 
a musical voice of great compass and far-reaching quality, 
a strong and well-trained mind, a warm and generous 
heart, a vivid imagination, he presented a superb picture 
to the eye and appealed with compelling force to the pas- 
sions and emotions of all who heard him. He possessed 
the advantages of high family connections and of a col- 
legiate education, to which was added the glamour of 
martial fame, achieved in his early manhood on many a 
bloody field. An Englishman dearl}^ loves a lord and the 
average American dearly loves a soldier, and it can not 
be doubted that Senator Daniel's military record aided 
him materially in his political battles. This is attested 
by the fact that Virginians fondly called him "the Lame 
Lion of Lynchburg" — most assuredly a helpful and fortu- 
nate sobriquet. For a generation he was the idol of his 
native State, and it was agreed by common consent that 
he should remain in the Senate so long as he lived, which 
he did. His reelection every six years was a mere formality 
to comply with the Constitution and the statutes of the 
land. 

Virginia's great lyric orator, Patrick Henry, was dubbed 
"The forest-born Demosthenes." John Warwick Daniel 
may be not inaptly denominated Virginia's Cicero. Henry's 
fame rests almost entirely on tradition ; but Daniel's is 
bottomed on the words which he actually spoke. The 
greatest of his orations is that on Gen. Robert E. Lee, 



208 CHAMP CLARK 

which would have aroused envy in the bosom of Tully 
himself. Daniel's masterful oration recalls and illustrates 
what Daniel Webster said of eloquence in his oration en 
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson : 

"It must exist in the man, in the subject, and in the 
occasion. Affected passion, intense expression, the pomp 
of declamation, all may aspire to it ; they can not reach 
it. It comes, if it come at all, like the outbreaking of a 
fountain from the earth or the bursting forth of volcanic 
fires, with spontaneous, original, native force." 

Webster was a great orator; he had a great subject 
on a great occasion, and he delivered a great oration. 
Daniel was a great orator; he had a great subject on a 
great occasion, and he delivered a great oration — one 
which will be read with delight so long as our language is 
spoken by the children of men. 

There was once a man named Hamilton, in the British 
Parliament, who delivered one splendid speech and could 
never be induced to make another speech. Hence he was 
nicknamed "Single-Speech" Hamilton. Such was not the 
case with Senator Daniel. He delivered many excellent 
speeches, several fine orations, but I give it as my literary 
opinion, for what it is worth, that his oration over Lee 
is the one by which he will be remembered, and by which 
he would choose to be remembered. 

His theme was his old commander, one of the greatest 
of English speaking captains ; the occasion was the un- 
veiling of the recumbent statue of that famous soldier, 



EXCERPTS FROM SPEECHES 209 

one of the most beautiful statues ever fashioned by sculp- 
tor's chisel; the scene, Lexington, Va., gem of the moun- 
tains, one of the loveliest spots betwixt the two seas, 
where Stonewall Jackson taught and prayed, and whence 
he went forth to win world-wide and imperishable renown. 
Daniel's heart was in that oration. In it he will live; 
through it he will speak to his countrymen forever. 

John James Ingalls 
(Saturday, January 21, 1905) 

Mr. Clark : Mr. Speaker, in the very heart of the conti- 
nent, lying side by side, are the magnificent Common- 
wealths of Missouri and Kansas. Neither northern nor 
southern, neither eastern nor western, they are the great 
central States of the Union. A circle with Kansas City 
for its center and with a radius of 300 miles would con- 
tain more land of the richest quality than any other circle 
of equal size on the habitable globe. Within its circumfer- 
ence can be produced all the necessaries and most of the 
luxuries of human life. Cultivated as scientifically as 
Belgium or Holland, Missouri and Kansas could sustain 
a population equal to that of the entire Republic at the 
present time. 

It is, however, not in their phenomenal wealth of ma- 
terial resources and possibilities that these two States are 
most lavishly blessed, but in their superb citizenship. 



210 CHAMP CLARK 

In tlie early days Missourians and Kansans, inheriting 
from the fathers a bitter, irrepressible, historic quarrel for 
which they were in no way responsible, were at daggers' 
points, and led "the strenuous life." Now, acting on the 
noble philosophy that "Peace hath her victories no less 
renowned than war," they are illustrating the virtues of 
"the simple life." Love, which laughs at locksmiths, has 
broken down the lines of demarcation. Missouri boy.s 
have married Kansas girls, and Kansas boys have married 
Missouri girls, until we are all getting to be kinfolks. 
The blend is the highest type of American manhood and 
womanhood. Missourians and Kansans are rivals now 
only in patriotism — in intellectual, moral, religious, and 
material achievement. They are leaders in the nation's 
triumphal progress, the true story of which is more 
marvelous than any tale out of the "Arabian Nights." 

It was a matter of ineffable pride with the people west 
of the Mississippi that for many years the two most bril- 
liant speakers in the Senate of the United States lived on 
the sunset side of the great river — George Graham Vest, 
of Missouri, and John James Ingalls, of Kansas. 

The}' were the opposites of each other in almost every- 
thing — in nativity, in lineage, in methods of thought, in 
style of oratory, and in politics. Ingalls boasted that he 
was a "New England Brahmin," whatever that may be. 
Vest was a fine sample of the Kentuckian, "caught young 
enough" and transplanted to the rich alluvial soil of 
Missouri. 



EXCERPTS FROM SPEECHES 211 

Both had classical educations, Ingalls being an alumnus 
of Williams College, Massachusetts, and Vest of Center 
College, Kentucky — two famous seats of learning. Both 
delighted in the wisdom of the ancients and the modems 
and both reveled in the poets. 

Ingalls was a judge-advocate of Kansas militia for a 
short while; Vest served on Price's staff a few days. 

Ingalls's speeches were composed largely of aqua fortis, 
dynamite, and Greek fire ; Vest's were a mixture of vitriol, 
sweet oil, rosewater, naphtha, and gun cotton. 

Danton's motto was: "L'audace! L'audace! Tou jours 
I'audace !" Ingalls's weapon was "Sarcasm ! Sarcasm ! 
Alwaj's sarcasm !" In that regard he ranks with Tristam 
Burges, John Randolph of Roanoke, Thaddeus Stevens, 
and Thomas Brackett Reed. Vest tempered liis sarcasm 
with genial humor which cured the wound which he had 
inflicted. 

Ingalls possessed the most copious and most gorgeous 
vocabulary of his day, more copious and more gorgeous, 
indeed, than that of any other American orator except 
Henry A. Wise; and was the most painstaking precisian 
in the use of our vernacular who has appeared in our Con- 
gressional life. He burnished his sentences till they glit- 
tered as a gem. He was well qualified to write an una- 
bridged dictionary or a book on synonyms. Clearly he 
thought with Holland that : 

I "The temple of art is built of words. Painting and 
sculpture and music are but the blazon of its vrindows, bor- 



212 CHAMP CLARK 

rowing all their significance from the light, and suggestive 
only of the temple's uses," 

Vest's diction was rich, but the construction of his 
sentences lacked evidence of the severe and repeated 
polishings to which the caustic Kansan subjected his. If 
he used as much art, he employed the rarer art of conceal- 
ing its use. 

Each wielded the scimitar of Saladin rather than the 
two-handed broadsword of Richard Coeur de Lion. 

Ingalls was tall, slender, and erect as a grenadier; Vest 
w^as short, rotund, and walked with the proverbial stud- 
ent's stoop. 

Ingalls neglected none of the accessories of public 

speech. He looked well to the stage settings. He was a 

connoisseur in costumes. Neither Roscoe Conkling nor 

Solomon in all his glory was more splendidly arraye . 

He followed in letter and in spirit the advice of Polonius 

to Laertes : 

"Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, 

"But not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy; 

"For the apparel oft proclaims the man." 

Vest enjoyed the comforts of good raiment, but cared 
nothing for the adornments. 

In the strictest acceptation of the term. Vest was never 
popular in Missouri, and Ingalls was never popular in 
Kansas. They had a wondrous hold on the admiration 
but not on the affections of their constituents. Thinking 
of Vest, a man is proud to call himself a Missourian. 



EXCERPTS FROM SPEECHES 213 

Thinking of Ingalls, another is proud to call himself a 
Kansan. Thinking' of either of them, one is proud to call 
himself an American. 

Each through sheer brilliancy of intellect and soul- 
stirring eloquence aroused intensest enthusiasm among his 
countrymen. Men listened to Vest and Ingalls just as 
they listen to the thrilling strains of entrancing music, 
but the frenzy of rapture which they engendered is not 
adequately expressed by the paltry word "popularity." 
It was delirious delight ! 

When either addressed the multitude, he so warmed their 
hearts that — 

"They threw their caps 

"As they would hang them on the horns o' the moon, 

"Shouting their exultation." 

It is a queer fact — perhaps a regrettable one — that 
these two celebrated intellectual gladiators never engaged 
in an oratorical pitched battle in the Senate. Such a duel 
would have been worth journeying across the continent to 
witness. Each being in perfect fettle, with a subject of 
suiEcient historic importance, a contest betwixt them 
ought to have rivaled the Webster-Hayne debate in endur- 
ing interest. 

Kansans are paying their highest meed of praise to 
Ingalls b}'^ placing his effigy, carv^ed by a cunning hand 
from Parian marble, in Statuary Hall, the great American 
Valhalla, where our choicest worthies do congregate for 
posterity. Missouri would do the same for Vest but for 



214 CHAMP CLARK 

the fact that her quota in that illustrious company was 
filled while he still tabernacled in the flesh. 

Ingalls preceded Vest to the grave, and in the Saturday 
Evening Post the brilliant Missourian said, inter alia, 
touching the brilliant Kansan : 

"Of all the public men with whom I have served John 
James Ingalls, of Kansas, was the most original and eccen- 
tric. He was a living enigma, and I could never fully un- 
derstand his motives and the many-sided phases of his char- 
acter. He had a strong, daring intellect, which defied all 
limitations, and was an eloquent, attractive speaker, with a 
wealth of imagination and diction which was inexhaustible. 
He was at times cynical and morose, but was a great word 
painter and could express the most elevated thoughts in 
language so beautiful as to fascinate his hearers. Above 
all, he was an iconoclast, and nothing delighted him so 
much as to startle and even shock the staid and dignified 
Senate by the utterance of opinion utterly at variance with 

the settled belief of many centuries. 

******* 

"I do not believe that Ingalls was malicious or bad 
hearted. He was an expert in denunciation and could 
not resist the temptation of exhibiting his wonderful capa- 
bility in that regard to the world. Ho loved poetry, 
music, painting, sculpture, and the beautiful in nature. 
His prose poem on Grass, published in a Kansas maga- 
zine before he came to the United States Senate, is 
a marvel in literature, and I am glad to know that a 



EXCERPTS FROM SPEECHES 215 

sentence from that essay is to be inscribed on the granite 

bowlder which marks his grave. The sentence is the one in 

which he eulogizes the blue grass sward, beneath which he 

sleeps, as a 'carpet for the infant and a blanket for the 

dead.' 

******* 

"Senator Ingalls was a master of satire and invective, 
being unable to resist the temptation to attack any of his 
colleagues, even those of his own party, whose record or 
character presented a vulnerable point for assault. On one 
occasion, when President pro tempore of the Senate, he 
called another Senator to the chair, and going down on 
the floor, made a vicious personal attack upon Senator 
Brown, of Georgia, one of the most amiable and courteous 
members of the Senate. The venerable Georgian was 
sitting quietly looking over a committee report when a 
cyclone of satire and vituperation burst upon him without 
the slightest notice of its coming. The look of astonish- 
ment on the amiable countenance of the victim, as verbs, 
nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and epithets filled the air, 
caused a ripple of amusement through the Senate ; but the 
climax was reached when Ingalls alluded to a habit Senator 
Brown had when speaking of gently rubbing one hand 
over the other, by quoting Hood's lines : 

'And then, in the fullness of joy and hope, 
'Seemed washing his hands with invisible soap 
'In imperceptible water.' 

"At this critical moment Senator Brown looked down at 



216 CHAMP CLARK 

the offending members as if inquiring why they had 
brought on the volcanic eruption which was blazing about 
him." 

The late Senator George Frisbie Hoar, in his auto- 
biography, says : 

" John James Ingalls was in many respects one of the 
brightest intellects I ever knew. He was graduated at 
Williams in 1855. One of the few things, I don't know 
but I might say the only thing, for which he seemed to 
have any reverence was the character of Mark Hopkins. 
He was a very conspicuous figure in the debates in the 
Senate. He had an excellent English style, always im- 
pressive, often on fit occasions rising to great stateliness 
and beauty. He was for a while President pro tempore 
of the Senate, and was the best presiding officer I have 
ever known there for conducting ordinary business. He 
maintained in the chair always his stately dignity of bear- 
ing and speech. The formal phrases with which he de- 
clared the action of the Senate or stated questions for its 
decision seemed to be a fitting part of some stately cere- 
monial. He did not care much about the principles of 
parliamentary law, and had never been a very thorough 
student of the rules. So his decisions did not have the 
same authority as those of Mr. Wheeler or Mr. Edmunds 
or Mr. Hamilton. 

"I said to him one day: 'I think you are the best presid- 
ing officer I ever knew, but I do not think you know much 



EXCERPTS FROM SPEECHES 217 

about parliamentary law.' To which he replied: 'I think 
the sting is bigger than the bee.' 

"He never lost an opportunity to indulge his gift of 
caustic wit, no matter at whose expense." 

Mr. Eugene W. Newman, who writes much and felicit- 
ously under the nom de plume of "Savoyard," characterizes 
Ingalls as "the wizard of the English tongue," and says 
of him: 

"John James Ingalls was an extraordinary man. By 
no means the ablest, he was perhaps the most brilliant 
Senator in Congress conspicuous for exceptionally bril- 
liant men. He was born in New England, of Puritan, not 
Pilgrim, parentage; of the Endicott, not the Carver, 
exodus ; of the Salem, not the Plymouth regime. In a 
sort of mirage of tradition the family is traced back to 
the Scandinavian kings and peoples who grafted Dane and 
Norman on Briton and Saxon. The name is in Domesday 
Book. President Garfield and Chief Justice Chase had like 

origin ; indeed, the same origin. 

* * * * ■* * * 

"Ingalls rose to be one of the chief figures in American 
politics and success came at his command. He never 
courted it. He was a poet, and never so lonesome as when 
in a crowd. Lamar was another of that order of man. 
Ingalls was not 'a man of the people,' emphatically 
not, and could not successfully employ the arts of the 
vulgar demagogue. He could just as easily have uplifted 
the club of Hercules or stricken with the hammer of Thor. 



218 CHAMP CLARK 

Honors came to him grudgingly and churlishly, and solely 

because he was the first intellect and the one genius in the 

Kansas that knew Dudley C. Haskell and Preston B. 

Plumb." 

These three — Vest, Hoar, and Newman — are competent 

and distinguished witnesses. Perhaps the average opinion 

of their evidence would properly and truly portray John 

James Ingalls. As Dryden described Halifax so may 

Ingalls be described: 

"Of piercing wit and pregnant thought, 
"Endued by nature and by learning taught 
"To move assemblies." 

Mr. Speaker, Kansas acts wisely in honoring John 
James Ingalls, for in honoring* him she also honors her- 
self. [Loud applause.] 

1^ George Feisbie Hoar 

' {Sunday, February 12, 1905) 

Mr. Clark : Mr. Speaker, that Senator George Frisbie 
Hoar will hold a high place and fill a large space in the 
annals of his time goes without saying. Of Revolutionary 
stock, a descendant of Roger Shennan, he was American 
to his heart's core, and he devoted his life to the service 
of the Republic, which rewarded him with her affection, 
her confidence, and her admiration. His lines were cast 
in pleasant places and in a history-making epoch. Though 
sometimes he was viciously assailed, at others he ran the 
risk of having applied to him the Scriptural injunction, 



EXCERPTS FROM SPEECHES 219 

"Woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you," and 
at last, having almost reached the Psalmist's extreme allot- 
ment of fourscore years, he had that — 

"Which should accompany old age, 

"As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends." 

Pleasant as it would be to me to enter into the details 
of his life, character, and labor, that delightful task must 
be left to others closer to him and more familiar with those 
facts which constitute the essentials of biography; but 
the invitation to speak here and now has suggested to my 
mind a few thoughts which may or may not be of interest 
to those who hear and read what is uttered on this occasion. 

Job exclaimed: "Oh, that mine adversary had written 
a book !" From that day to this when a man has taken his 
pen in hand to write a book it has been assumed that he 
also took his reputation, if not his life, in his hand; but 
the fact that M^hat the man of Uz considered an extra- 
hazardous performance is not necessarily fatal to the per- 
fonner is demonstrated by the event of the November 
election, when Col. Theodore Roosevelt, who has written 
many books, in which he expressed his opinions of persons 
and things with startling freedom, not to say abandon, 
was chosen President of this puissant Republic by an 
ovei'whelming majority. This seems to signify that the 
American people admire candid and courageous speak- 
ing — even in a book. 



220 CHAMP CLARK 

However that may be, I rejoice and hail it as a healthy 
sign of the times that our public men are more and more 
growing into the habit of writing, in the evening of their 
lives, books of a more or less reminiscent nature, recording 
from their standpoint their views of the transactions which 
they witnessed and part of which they were. What they say 
in that regard may be taken and accepted as part of the 
res gestse. 

Caesar owes as much of liis fame to his Commentaries as 
to his victories. The fruits of his conquests have long 
since perished. The mighty empire which he founded has 
crumbled into dust. Happily for mankind, the system of 
government for which his name has become the synonym 
is in process of ultimate extinction ; but by his Com- 
mentaries he has helped to form the minds of the youths 
of every civilized country under heaven through twenty 
centuries of man's most interesting history and most 
stupendous endeavor. So long as education is valued 
Csesar will exercise imperial sway over the human mind, 
riot by the power of his invincible sword, which is rust, 
but by his cunning with the pen. Fighting was the serious 
business of his life. The preparation of his Commentaries 
was merely a mental recreation in his tent at eventide, 
amid the clatter of camps and the clangor of arms. Had 
he been catechised as to his deeds on which would be 
buildcd the towering fabric of his fame, he most probably 
would not have enumerated his Commentaries as even the 
smallest and humblest of them, but they constitute his 



EXCERPTS FROM SPEECHES 221 

clearest, strongest, and most enduring title to the favor- 
able consideration of mankind. 

Napoleon, the most astounding son of Mars, with 
clearer vision and a wiser judgment as to the relative value 
of human achievements, proudly declared that he would 
descend to posterity with his Code in his hand, a prophecy 
which has been amply verified. The crimson glories of 
Montenotte, Lodi, Areola, Marengo, the Pyramids, Aus- 
terlitz, Ulm, Jena, and Wagram were dimmed by Leipzig, 
Waterloo, and the dismal journey to St. Helena; the 
thrones which he ravished from hostile kings and bestowed 
upon his brothers, sisters, and stable hoys passed again to 
his royal enemies whom he had despoiled; the imperial 
crown, bought with so much blood and so much crime for 
his son, never encircled the brow of that pathetic child 
of misfortune; but the laws created by the fiat of the 
Corsican Colossus influence and bless the lives of 75,- 
000,000 people because they were grounded in justice and 
in wisdom. His career illustrates and enforces the truth 
contained in Bulwer-Lytton's famous lines: 

"Beneath the rule of men entirely great 
"The pen is mightier than the sword." 

Others have marched as strenuously and fought as 
bravely as Xenophon and his ten thousand, only to vanish 
into oblivion ; but he and his band are among the immortals 
because he wrote the Anabasis, which has delighted and 
instructed millions of ambitious boys and which will de- 



223 CHAMP CLARK 

light and instruct succeeding millions till the earth shall 
perish with fervent heat. 

The triumphal expedition of Gen. Alexander W. 
Doniphan and his heroic INIissourians into the heart of 
Mexico by way of Santa Fe, traversing a vast wilderness 
full of hostile savages ; subsisting on the enemy's country ; 
winning- numerous victories over the very flower of the de- 
scendants of the knights of Castile and Aragon; never 
losing a gun, a flag, a prisoner, or a skirmish, though 
frequently engaging ten times their own number; never 
drawing from the Government a dollar, a ration, a piece 
of clothing, or an ounce of ammunition from the moment 
they left Fort Leavenworth, Kans., till ragged, starving, 
but invincible, they reported to Gen. Zacliary Taylor on 
the red field of Monterey, having added an empire to the 
Union, is the most astounding martial achievement in the 
entire history of the human race. In difficulty, in courage, 
in fortitude, in glory, in results it eclipses utterly the far- 
famed retreat which Xenophon has embalmed in immortal 
prose. 

Every schoolboy knows by heart the fascinating story 
of the Greeks ; but few remember the more wonderful per- 
formance of the Missourians. Mirabile dictu! The 
glorious name of Doniphan, the conqueror of New Mexico, 
Arizona, and Chihuahua does not even appear in some of 
our most ambitious encyclopedias. The reason is that 
General Doniphan, of Missouri, did not emulate the laud- 
able example of General Xenophon, of Greece, by writing 



EXCERPTS FROM SPEECHES 223 

a history of his own campaign ; consequently he and the 
brave IMissourians who followed his all-conquering banner 
are to dumb forgetfulness a prey. " 'Tis true 'tis pity ; and 
pity 'tis 'tis true." While I am not general counsel for the 
star actors In the world's drama, I make bold to suggest 
to them that if they desire a square deal in history they 
would do well to Imitate Csesar and Xenophon and write 
the histories themselves. 

Who cares a straw what Joseph Addison did or did not 
do as Secretary of State? But who that has a love of 
learning in his heart would be willing to see the last copy 
of "The Tattler" and "The Spectator" committed to the 
flames ? 

John Milton wrought much and successfully In the case 
of human liberty, but "Paradise Lost" is his crowning 
glory. 

Lord Macaulay, the statesman, the lawgiver, the office- 
holder, would have been forgotten years ago, but so 
long as our vernacular — the most elastic and virile ever 
spoken by the children of men — is used, the history, the 
poems, and, above all, the essays of Thomas Bablngton 
]\Iacaulay will inspire the human mind and thrill the 
human heart. 

Every scholar that has lived during three centuries 
has regretted that Lord Bacon was ever high chancellor 
of England, an office which he disgraced, and In disgrac- 
ing which he also disgraced the noble profession of the 
law; but every scholar — aye, every lover of our kind — 



224 CHAMP CLARK 

in all that long lapse of years has thanked Almighty God 
that Francis Bacon wrote the "Novum Organum" and "De 
Augmentis," by which, turning the human mind to utili- 
tarianism, he contributed more to human comfort than 
was ever contributed by any other of the multitudinous 
sons of Adam. 

The imperial house of Austria has long been a great 
factor in European affairs. Henry Fielding, the Eng- 
lish novelist, was related to it by ties of blood ; and Gibbon, 
the historian of "The Decline and Fall of the Roman 
Empire," declares that Fielding, by writing "Tom Jones," 
shed more luster upon our race than all the Hapsburgers 
that ever lived. 

Of what interest to us are the achievements of Bulwer 
pere in the role of statesman, or of Bulwer fils as gover- 
nor-general of India? But till the end of time men will 
read with interest and women with tears "Eugene Aram" 
and "Lucile." 

Thomas Brackett Reed, that masterful man whose 
memory we all cherish with infinite pride, was one of the 
great Speakers of this House, and accomplished a tre- 
mendous revolution in parliamentary procedure; but his 
fame is already a fading tradition. What would not the 
world give for a book from his trenchant pen expressing 
his honest opinions as to the men and measures with which 
he was associated.'' It would be a fit companion piece for 
"Gulliver" and "The Letters of Junius." 

Senator Chauncey Mitchell Depew ranks high in the 



EXCERPTS FROM SPEECHES 225 

Senate ; but the best service he could render his kind would 
be to devote his days and nights to writing a book of 
reminiscences. Many New Yorkers would make creditable 
Senators ; but no other living man could write a book of 
such intense and abiding interest as could Senator Depew. 

There has been much sneering at "the scholar in 
politics." That manifestation of bad temper and jealousy 
is easy and cheap. On a memorable occasion an eminent 
practical Pennsylvanian politician referred to an illustri- 
ous citizen of Boston who had been named for a high dip- 
lomatic post as "one of them literary fellows," with a 
profane adjective which the proprieties forbid me to re- 
peat in this distinguished presence on this historic occa- 
sion. Nevertheless and notwithstanding, Col. Thomas 
Hart Benton, of Missouri, by writing his "Thirty Years' 
View" did more to make himself a great, an indispensable 
historic figure than he accomplished by his arduous service 
of six full Roman lustrums in the Senate and of one term 
in the House. As long as government exists on this conti- 
nent he will be regarded as a standard authority on all 
matters pei-taining to Congressional legislation. By writ- 
ing his "Twenty Years of Congress," James Gillespie 
Blaine made a most valuable contribution to our political 
literature and achieved for himself a more permanent 
renown than if the supreme ambition of his heart had been 
gratified by an election to the Presidency. 

Samuel Sullivan Cox, one of the most brilliant of 
mortals, a Representative in Congress for many years 



CHAMP CLARK 

from both Ohio and New York, as well as minister to the 
Sublime Porte, and the first man that every delivered a 
speech in this Hall, may fade from public memory as a 
statesman, but "The Buckeye Abroad," "Why We Laugh," 
and "The Three Decades of Federal Legislation" will be 
perused with pleasure by millions yet unborn. 

For thirty-odd years, in House and Senate, George 
Frisbie Hoar was one of the most conspicuous legislators 
and orators of the times in which he lived. No great 
statute was placed upon the books which he did not have 
a hand in shaping. No important question arose which he 
did not discuss ; but long after all that he did and said in 
this Chamber and the other has passed from the minds of 
men his "Autobiography of Seventy Years" will challenge 
the admiration of his countrymen. His noblest mental off- 
spnng was the last. 

His book has been criticised on two grounds — as being] 
too egotistical and as assigning to New Englanders in 
general, and Massachusetts men in particular, too high 
rank. At first blush I deemed both criticisms well taken, 
but upon mature reflection I concluded that neither is 
tenable. An autobiography, whether written by a Har- 
vard man or by a Davy Crockett, is in the very nature of 
things egotistical, for the ego is the very essence of the 
theme. What might be off^ensive or preposterous in 
private conversation or in public speech may be appro- 
priate and even pleasing in autobiographical writing. 

When he came to the graceful task of assigning the 



EXCERPTS FROM SPEECHES 227 

status of New Englanders and Bay State men he evidently 
took to heart the precept of St. Paul : 

"But if any provide not for his own, and especially for 
those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is 
worse than an infidel." 

Even if it be conceded that he did overpraise the men of 
New England and Massachusets — 

"His failings leaned to virtue's side." 

For undue friendliness to one's kindred and neighbors 
is greatly preferable to jealousy of them, and bears testi- 
mony of a nobler soul. 

Indeed, he had much cause to be lavish of panegyric in 
speaking of the men of Massachusetts. Merely to walk 
the streets of Boston and read the inscriptions on her 
monuments, her statues, and her buildings is a liberal 
education in patriotism. Should an inhabitant of another 
planet, versed in both Latin and English, descend upon 
that city, without any prior knowledge of our history, he 
would naturally conclude that Massachusetts, single- 
handed and alone, originated and achieved the Revolution, 
created the Republic, and has sustained and governed it 
from the first. If he should read Massachusetts books, 
which constitute a great multitude which no man can 
number, he would be confirmed in this erroneous impression. 
No complaint can reasonably be made of Massachusetts 
nor of Senator Hoar for unduly exalting the horn of 
Massachusetts men. What I do complain of is that the 
people of the South and West have not pursued the same 



228 CHAMP CLARK 

plan with their own worthies, and have permitted them to" 
be killed off by the Inexorable rule of exclusion. Their 
pioneer statesmen, warriors, orators, and State builders 
were content to do things, great and glorious things, but 
were careless of what record was made of their achieve- 
ments. The incorrigible New England habit of book- 
making accounts for the fact that her influence In America 
is large out of all proportion to her area, population, or 
achievements. Her writers would be destitute of human 
nature if they were not biased — unconsciously, perhaps, 
but biased nevertheless — in favor of New England men, 
New England women, New England performance. New 
England scenery. New England opinion, and even of New 
England climate. Of course the ground already lost by 
the South and West In this regard can never be recovered ; 
but surely it is high time to go resolutely, systematically, 
and extensively into the book-making business themselves. 
This much they owe to their ancestors, to themselves, to 
their posterity, to history, to truth, and to patriotism. 

Thousands of statesmen, orators, soldiers, and lawyers 
have lived and been forgotten ; but it may be safely stated 
that since Guttenberg Invented movable type no man has 
written a really great book who is not still remembered 
by intelligent persons. 

Macaulay says: 

"One of the most remarkable circumstances in the history 
of Bacon's mind is the order In which its powers expanded 
themselves. With him the fruit came first and remained 



EXCERPTS FROM SPEECHES 229 

to the last. The blossoms did not appear till late. In 
general, the development of the fancy is to the develop- 
ment of the judgment what the growth of a girl is to the 
growth of a boy. The fancy attains at an earlier period 
to the perfection of its beauty, its power, and its fruit- 
fulness, and, as it is first: to ripen, it is also the first to 
fade. It has generally lost something of its bloom and 
freshness before the sterner faculties have reached ma- 
turity, and is commonly withered and barren while those 
faculties still retain all their energy. It rarely happens 
that the fancy and the judgment grow together. It 
happens still more rarely that the judgment grows faster 
than the fancy. This seems, however, to have been the 
case with Bacon. His boyhood and youth appear to have 
been singularly sedate. His gigantic scheme of philo- 
sophical reform is said by some writers to have been 
planned before he was fifteen, and was undoubtedly 
planned while he was still young. He observed as 
vigilantly, meditated as deeply, and judged as temper- 
ately when he gave his first work to the world as at the 
close of his long career. But in eloquence, in sweetness, 
and variety of expression, and in richness of illustration, 
his later writings are far superior to those of his youth." 

These words may be applied almost literally to Senator 
Hoar. From the day he delivered his great Philippic 
against Mr. Secretary Belknap to the hour of his death 
he spoke as frequently perhaps as any other man in public 
life, and every word that fell from his lips was read with 



g30 CHAMP CLARK 

eagerness by the intelligence of America. His style con- 
stantly grew richer, more imaginative, and more ornate, 
until some of his later speeches partook largely of the 
nature of epic poems. The peculiar order of gTowth which 
Macaulay notes in Bacon's mind, and which I have just 
stated to be true with reference to Senator Hoar's, is 
also true, though in a lesser degree, of the intellects of 
Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, and William Mc- 
Kinley. The feature in which their minds and styles seem 
to have changed most markedly in their advanced years 
was that of humor. Prior to their induction into the 
Presidential office it would be difficult to discover even a 
trace of humor in their writings or their speeches ; but 
after quitting the White House both Mr. Cleveland and 
General Hamson developed a rich vein of humor. On his 
trip to California President McKinley lightened up his 
speeches with genial humor, which was a grateful surprise 
to his countrymen. Even on his death-bed he uttered one 
delicious mote at the expense of his physicians. I hold it 
truth that this development of humor in these three illus- 
trious citizens of the Republic was so much clear gain to' 
all our people. 

It may possibly be — who knows .f* — that these men were 
dowered with the humorous faculty at birth, but the occu- 
pations of their lives had been so serious and so pressing 
that they never had leisure nor inclination to indulge its 
exercise. 

It is a matter of congratulation that they did develop 



EXCERPTS FROM SPEECHES 231 

that faculty, for I believe in Carlyle's dictum that 
"Humor has justly been regarded as the finest perfection 
of poetic genius." 

The career of Senator Hoar suggests still another 
thought — that all the world, including Massachusetts, is 
growing more liberal and more tolerant. As a matter of 
fact, Massachusetts has always been liberal and tolerant 
above the average in the range of opinion permitted to her 
public men. Nevertheless, the fact remains that Boston 
shut the doors of Faneuil Hall in the face of Daniel 
Webster, the greatest New Englander who ever saw the 
light of day, the greatest orator who ever spoke the Eng- 
lish tongue, and that the legislature of Massachusetts 
passed resolutions of censure upon Charles Sumner, be- 
cause they had run counter to the public sentiment of 
their constituencies. But Senator Hoar's was a happier 
fate, for, notwithstanding the fact that he ran counter to 
her public sentiment more frequently and more violently 
than either Sumner or the godlike Daniel, Massachusetts 
re-elected him in his extreme old age to a fifth full term 
in the Senate of the United States. With her increasing 
generosity the Old Bay State would probably have kept 
him in the Senate a half century had he lived so long. 
This wiser liberality was not only an honor to Massa- 
chusetts and a gratification to Senator Hoar, but is an 
added glory to the Republic and to the human race. 



232 CHAMP CLARK 

SPEECH AT JEFFERSON DAY BANQUET 

{Louisville, Kentucky, Saturday, April 6, 1912) 

Mr. Clark said: In the preface to his wonderful Life 
of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden, Voltaire speaks of cer- 
tain Emperors, Kings, Princes, potentates, warriors, and 
statesmen as "rising above the vulgar level of the gi'eat." 
That was one of the most suggestive phrases ever coined 
in the teeming brain of its brilliant author. It sticks to the 
memory like a burr, and tells us with an emphasis never 
to be forgotten that many men considered great by their 
worshipful contemporaries were only make-believe great 
men, pseudo Goliaths, who were the happy beneficiaries of 
an optical delusion common to the people of their day, 
but that time, the acid test of reputations, reduces them to 
their proper stature, assigning most of them to oblivion. 
The truly great, whose fame and deeds, surviving the revo- 
lutions and evolutions of the centuries, are enshrined in the 
minds and hearts of men, are like "angels' visits, few and 
far between." 

Thomas Jefferson, the anniversary of whose birth we 
celebrate, wrote his name in indelible letters high up on 
the scanty list of the immortals. He was the profoundest 
philosopher that ever devoted his life to politics, the great- 
est statesman that ever lived, bar none, the foremost and 
tallest among the torch-bearers and path-blazers of human 
liberty. The high place assigned to him by his contem- 
poraries has been confirmed to him by the well-nigh unani- 



EXCERPTS FROM SPEECHES 233 

mous voice of posterity and his vast reputation constantly 
grows vaster as the years steal into centuries. 

Second to Washington Only. — In all our history his 
reputation is topped by that of only one other, George 
Washington, who added to the renown of a statesman the 
glory of a successful soldier and who earned more thor- 
oughly and wore more becomingly the proud title of Pater 
Patriae than did Marcus Tullius Cicero. We scarcely do 
justice to Washington even yet. He rendered more im- 
portant sei*vice to his country and to human liberty as 
President of the Constitutional Convention than as cither 
Commander-in-Chief of our armies or as President of the 
United States, for it is almost certain that, but for his 
all-pervading influence in the convention, no Constitution 
would have been agreed upon, and but for the absolute 
certainty that he would be the first President the Constitu- 
tion would never have been ratified. 

B3'ron's splendid picture of Washington is not over- 
drawn : 

"Where may the wearied eye repose 

"When gazing on the Great; 
"Where neither guilty glory glows, 

"Nor despicable state? 
"Yes — One — the first — the last — the best-^ 
"The Cincinnatus of the West, 

"Whom Envy dared not hate, 
"Bequeathed the name of Washington, 
"To make man blush there was but one." 

*■******■ 

As He Saw Himself. — When Jefferson came to die he 
did the unusual thing of writing his own epitaph. Passing 



234 CHAMP CLARK 

over the fact that he had been a member of the Virginia 
Burgesses, member of the Continental Congress, Governor 
of Virginia, Minister to France, Secretary of State, Vice- 
President and President, he set forth the three achieve- 
ments which he deemed his clearest titles to the love and 
admiration of his f ellowmen in these words : "Here was 
buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of 
American Independence, of the statute of Virginia for re- 
ligious freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia." 
Those were great and glorious deeds for which we owe 
him an everlasting debt of gratitude, but even the wisest 
men sometimes build more wisely than they know, and 
through the strangest literary omission in all history, he 
failed to mention the most stupendous and beneficent of 
all his achievements, the "Louisiana Purchase." That is 
the capstone on the towering fabric of his fame. 

When the Corsican Colossus released all claim to that 
rich empire on the 30th day of April, 1803, we became 
instanter and ipso facto a world power. If Jefferson's 
keen blue eye had never looked forth upon this glorious 
world somebody would have written a Declaration of 
American Independence, for that was a thing inevitable. 
It Avould not have possessed the majestic sweep of Jef- 
ferson's. No other state paper ever did. But it would 
have sufficed. If he had never been bom somebody would 
have penned Virginia's statute of religious freedom and 
somebody would have founded a university In Virginia; 
but if Thomas Jefferson had not defeated John Adams 



EXCERPTS FROM SPEECHES 235 

in 1800 we never would have owned one square foot of land 
west of the Great river, for, while Napoleon was supreme 
upon the land, England was Mistress of the Sea, and she 
would have stripped him of his trans-Mississippi posses- 
sions. Hemmed in as we would have been by Great Britain 
on the north and west and Spain on the south, it would 
have been difficult, if not impossible, for us to maintain 

our independence and to preserve our autonomy. 

******* 

Doubly Dear to Trans-Mississippians. — So that, 
while Jefferson's memory is precious to all Americans, it 
is doubly precious to those of us who dwell on the sunset 
side of the Father of Waters. He enabled us to be Ameri- 
cans and to live where we now live. It is a great thing 
to be a Kentuckian. It is a great thing to be a Missourian, 
but the greatest thing is to be an American. Every times 
they think of him millions of people beyond the Mississippi 
bless the name of Thomas Jefferson : 

/ "His spirit wraps the dusky mountain, \ 
I "His memory sparkles o'er the fountain ;\ 
1 "The meanest rill, the mightiest river, j 
'- "Rolls mingling with his fame forever." ^' 

There are a cloud of witnesses to the greatness of/ 
Thomas Jefferson. I shall quote only two. Senator George 
Frisbie Hoar, of Massachusetts, was a Republican all his 
days, and yet he began a remarkable speech on the great 
Virginian in this wise: 

"If we want a sure proof of Thomas Jefferson's great- 
ness it will be found in the fact that men of every va- 



236 CHAMP CLARK 

/ riety of political opinion, however far asunder, find con- 

/ firmation of their doctrine in liim. Every party in this 

I country to-day reckons Jefferson as its patron saint." 

In the same line, Abraham Lincoln declared in one of 

his great speeches tl)at he never had a political idea in his 

life which he had not learned from the Declaration of 

^^__,^ Independence. 

******** 

Senator Hoar's Tribute. — Again, Senator Hoar says : 
"The mighty figure of Thomas Jefferson comes down in 
history with the Declaration of Independence in one hand 
and the title deed of Louisiana in the other. He ac- 
quired for his country a territory of 1,171,931 square 
miles, now fifteen States, to be hereafter the seat and 
center of empire certainly of this continent and, as we 
confidently believe, of the world. Yet I beheve in the 
estimate of mankind that achievement is insignificant com- 
pared with the other. 

"The author of the Declaration of Independence 
stands in human history as the foremost man who ever 
lived, whose influence has led men to govern themselves 
in the conduct of States by spiritual laws. That was Jef- 
ferson's mission — to teach spiritual laws. Obsei've that I 
say spiritual laws, not spiritual truths merely, not form- 
ulae to be assented to, but rules of life to be governed by 
and acted upon. 

"It was due to Jefferson that our fathers laid deep the 
foundations of the State in the moral law. They first set 



EXCERPTS FROM SPEECHES 237 

to mankind the great example and exhibited the mighty 
spectacle — the subllraest spectacle in the universe — of a 
great and free people voluntarily governing itself by a 
law higher than its own desire. 

"Political freedom, religious freedom, and the educa- 
tion that makes these possible and safe were the ends for 
which he strove, the monuments by which he desired to 
be remembered. Neither power, nor honor, nor office, nor 
popularity, nor fame entered into the mighty heart or 
stirred that mighty soul. 

"I remember in my youth that a brilliant writer under- 
took with some success to caricature Daniel Webster, al- 
though it was a rather audacious attempt. He represents 
Mr. Webster as saying: 'The common opinion in the 
Eastern Hemisphere is so and so — I differ from this East- 
em Hemisphere.' That was not so unreasonable a thing 
for Daniel Webster to say. But if Thomas Jefferson had 
said it, it would occur to no man that it was either extrava- 
gant or presumptuous. Thomas Jefferson was one of 
those men who can differ from hemispheres, from genera- 
tions, from administrations, and from centuries with the 
perfect assurance that on any question of liberty and 
righteousness, if the opinion of Thomas Jefferson stand on 
one side and the opinion of mankind on the other, the 

world will, in the end, come around to his way of thinking." 
******* 

Wonderful Versatility. — Its versatility was one of 
the most striking features of Thomas Jefferson's exquisite 



238 CHAMP CLARK 

mind, which was both telescopic and microscopic in its 
range and operations. Shakespeare has been denominated 
"the Myriad-Minded." That description may be applied 
to Jefferson without exaggeration or bad taste. 

Lord Bacon declared that he took all knowledge for his 
province, which Jefferson appears to have done also, al- 
though he never so stated or intimated. His bent was 
towards philosophy, and the Agricultural Society of the 
Seine voted him a gold medal for inventing a plow with 
mold-board of least resistance. 

Sir Isaac Newton is much and justly lauded by histor- 
ians for devising a plan for milling the edge of coins ; but 
Jefferson accomplished so many things of importance in 
so many fields of human endeavor that little mention is 
made of the fact that he invented our system of coinage, 
weights, and measures — based on the decimal notation — 
thereby conferring an inestimable boon upon his country- 
men. 

Had he not been drawn by circumstances into the swirl 

of politics, he would as a scientist have ranked with the 

Father of Inductive Philosophy, with the Discoverer of 

the Law of Gravitation, and with the Captor of the 

Lightning. 

******* 

Mastee of Law. — It is conceded by all his associates, 
whether friend or foe — and he had a full complement of 
both — that he thoroughly mastered the law, to accomplish 
which task Lord Eldon asserted that "one must live like a 



EXCERPTS FROM SPEECHES 239 

hermit and work like a horse." Jeiferson subscribed to the 
last half of Eldon's dictum, but scorned the first half 
utterly, for all his days he was the most sociable of mortals, 
being at home equally with the plain people and with the 
greatest of the sons of men. 

While mathematics was such a perpetual delight to him 
that he habitually carried with him a pocketbook of logar- 
ithms as an aid in intricate calculations, he was thoroughly 
grounded in Greek, Latin, French, and Italian, and was in 
posse as universal a linguist as Elihu Burritt, "The 
Learned Blacksmith." With much labor, indefatigable in- 
dustry, and infinite patience, he collected fifty Indian vo- 
cabularies, the loss of which by theft he mourned always. 

As a presidential scholar, he stands in a class with John 
Quincy Adams and James Abram Garfield. He was so 
"cunning with his pen," to borrow a happy phrase from 
John Adams, that in point of literary excellence his "Sum- 
mary View of the Rights of British America," his "Decla- 
ration of American Independence," and his first Inaugural 
Address rank with Milton's Prose, the letters of Alexander 
Pope, and the Book of Common Prayer. 

To please a friend and as a mental recreation he wrote 
his "Notes on Virginia," which is an authority to this day 
and which is as pleasant reading as Goldsmith's "Animated 
Nature," and much more instructive. 

Famous as Fiddler. — He possessed fine musical talent 
and was a famous fiddler, drawing the bow with the zest, 
if not with the skill, of Paganini and Ole Bull. 



240 CHAMP CLARK 

He was familiar with all systems of architecture and 
knew more about them than any other American of his 
generation. For his own use and for the use of Senators, 
while Vice-President, he wrote "Jefferson's Manual," which 
is the foundation of all the parliamentary codes in America 
to-day. 

Agriculture was his hobby ; he did more for its promo- 
tion than any other statesman that ever lived, and deserves 
to be the perpetual Emeritus President of the Patrons of 
Husbandry. He was the first man on this continent to 
reduce farming to a science. He divided his lands into plots 
and kept an accurate account with each, so that he could 
ascertain what sorts of crops were suited to particular 
soils. He obtained, for the planters of the South, Turin 
rice, which has proved a source of vast wealth to that sec- 
tion. He Imported the first Merino sheep, which are a 
great success, and experimented with fat-tail sheep, which 
did not flourish in our climate. While controlling the mul- 
titudinous and multifarious affairs of a nascent republic, 
he somehow found time personally to establish and conduct 
a miniature Agricultural Department, Botanical Garden, 
and Weather Bureau, to make meteorological observations 
three times a day through a long series of years, and to 
note minutely the first appearance In the market and upon 
the table of each particular species of vegetables, fruit, and 
grain grown in this latitude. 

He had made a profound study of the fauna and flora 
of America, and was a lover of flowers, shrubs, trees, and 



EXCERPTS FROM SPEECHES 241 

animals. He was a skillful horseman, and until the day of 
his death, when past the Psalmist's extreme allotment of 
four-score years, he would ride nothing but the pick and 
choice of Virginia thoroughbreds. Some of his favorite 
saddle horses, notably "Wildair" and "Eagle," have repu- 
tations as enduring as Alexander's "Bucephalus," Napo- 
leon's "Marengo," Wellington's "Copenhagen," Robert E. 
Lee's "Traveler," Stonewall Jackson's "Old Sorrel," or 
Philip H. Sheridan's "Rienzi." 

Father of Public Schools. — Believing with all his 
heart that the intelligence of the masses is the true basis 
of free government, in his younger days he evolved the 
system of public schools now in vogue, which we boast is 
the chief bulwark of our liberties, and after retiring from 
the presidency founded the University of Virginia — one of 
the greatest institutions of learning on the whole face of 
the earth. By these two achievements — to say nothing of 
his political teachings — he has perhaps exerted a wider 
influence over the minds of men than any of his predeces- 
sors or successors in the Chief Magistracy of the Republic. 
He must be counted among the greatest lawgivers of his 
time. By abolishing the unjust and unnatural rule of 
primogeniture he confeiTed a permanent benefaction upon 
his fellow-citizens, and his Statute of Religious Freedom 
is one of the three things on which he chose to rest his 
fame in his celebrated epitaph and which he deemed his 
cleverest titles to the gratitude of future generations. 
Had his scheme of gradual and rational emancipation 



M2 CHAMP CLARK 

been adopted the chances arc that we would have escaped 
the countless horrors and calamities of the war between 
the States. He, and not Nathan Dane, was the real 
author of the ordinance for the government of the North- 
west Territory, although Daniel Webster undertook to give 
the honor to the latter. Jefferson was virtually the author 
of the first ten amendments to the Constitution of the 
United States, which are in the nature of a Bill of Rights, 
and which contain the essence of human freedom. 

He was so thoroughly grounded in the principles of gov- 
ernment of the people, by the people, and for the people, 
that he was a potent factor in two revolutions — one in 
America, the other in France — the purpose of which was 
to establish the twin propositions that "All men are created 
equal" and that "Governments derive their just powers 
from the consent of the governed." So clear was his vision 
as a statesman that, after a century of legislation, we have 
not attained his lofty standard of political conduct. The 
strongest proof of his versatility is the fact that he is more 
frequently quoted than any other statesman the world has 
ever known. 

The Democratic Creed. — When Jefferson delivered his 
first inaugural, which has become a classic, and which, if I 
had my way about it, every boy and girl in America 
should commit to memory as a literary exercise, for among 
his other excellences he wrote better English than any 
man that ever set foot on the American continent, he 
stated the Democratic creed in these words : 



EXCERPTS FROM SPEECHES 243 

"Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state 
or persuasion, religious or political: 

"Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all na- 
tions, entangling alliances with none ; 

"The support of the State Governments in all their 
rights, as the most competent administrations for our do- 
mestic concerns, and the surest bulwarks against anti- 
republican tendencies ; 

"The preservation of the general Government, in its 
whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of our 
peace at home and safety abroad ; 

"A jealous care of the right of election by the people, 
a mild and safe corrective of abuses, which are lopped by 
the sword of revolution where peaceable remedies are un- 
provided ; 

"Absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority, 
the vital principle of republics from which is no appeal but 
to force, the vital principle and immediate parent of des- 
potism ; 

"A well-disciplined militia, our best reliance in peace 
for the first moments of war till regulars may relieve them ; 

"The supremacy of the civil over the military authority ; 

"Economy in public expense, that labor may be lightly 
burdened ; 

"The honest payment of our debts and sacred preserva- 
tion of the public faith ; 

"Encouragement of agriculture and of commerce as its 
handmaid ; 



244 CHAMP CLARK 

"The diffusion of infonnation and arraignment of all 
abuses at the bar of public reason. 

"Freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and free- 
dom of person under the protection of the Habeas Corpus 
and trial by juries impartially selected. 

"These principles form the bright constellation which 
'has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of 
revolution and reform. The wisdom of our sages and 
^blood of our heroes have been devoted to their attainment. 
They should be the creed of our politicaL faith, the text 
of civic instruction, the touchstone by which to try the^ 
services of those we trust, and should we wander from them 
in moments of error or alann, let us hasten to retrace our 
steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, 
liberty, and safety." 

To this all-embracing creed Jefferson's disciples this 
night avow their allegiance with the same fervor as did 
James Madison, James Monroe, Albert Gallatin, and the 
Democrats of their day. If the American people lived up 
in good faith to that declaration of principles we would 
have a well-nigh perfect government. 

What Government Should Do. — Another passage out 
of that inaugural should be burned into the memory of 
every man, woman, and child betwixt the two seas. It 
runs in this wise: 

"With all these blessings, what more is necessary to 
make us a happy and prosperous people? Still one thing 
more, fellow-citizens, — a wise and frugal government 



EXCERPTS FROM SPEECHES 245 

which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall 
leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of 
industry and improvement, and shall not take from the 
mouth of labor the bread it has earned." 

The sort of government described in that paragraph is 
precisely what the Democrats of to-day are striving for. 
The idea therein contained and so happily expressed is the 
perfection of Democracy, the people's rule. 

What is the secret of this man's wonderful hold on the 
minds, hearts, and imagination of mankind? It was his 
intense love of liberty. That was the master passion of his 
soul. He believed in the equality of all men before the 
law. That was the basic principle of his creed. He be- 
lieved with his whole heart in the honesty, the patriotism, 
and the good sense of the masses of the people. He loved 
them with all the intensity of his nature, and they repaid 
that love in scriptural measure — heaped up, pressed down, 
and running over. Ever since he wrote the Declaration 
of Independence, wherever men have been struggling for 
freedom in any quarter of the globe his name has been 
their inspiration, and could he return to earth, while he 
would rejoice in the marvelous physical development which 
has taken place since his death, the thing at which he 
would rejoice most would be the spread of liberty through- 
out the world. 

Jefferson and Hamilton. — It is impossible to think 
of Thomas Jefferson without thinking of Alexander Hamil- 
ton. They were antagonists in life; they are antagonists 



246 CHAMP CLARK 

in history, and they are antagonists in their graves. Jef- 
ferson proclaimed that all men are created equal, and that 
governments derive their just powers from the consent 
of the governed. On the other hand his gi-eat antagonist 
distrusted the people and believed in the aristocracy^ or 
monarchial theory of government. He boldly declared that 
the British Government, with King and Lords and Com- 
mons, was the best ever devised by the wit of man. He 
believed till the day of his death that the Constitution was 
— to use his own words — "a weak and worthless fabric," 
"a mere rope of sand." It is true, and the truth should be 
stated, that Hamilton rendered valuable service in the New 
York Convention, and in the Federalist in having the Con- 
stitution adopted, but he did so because it was the strong- 
est he could get, not because it was strong enough to suit 
him. Here Is a hard nut for the psychologist to crack. 
How did it happen that Thomas Jefferson, who by birth, 
lineage, and education and environment was an aristocrat, 
should have been the greatest leveler that ever appeared 
on this continent — the very incarnation of the people's 
rule, the cliief priest, apostle, and propagandist of democ- 
racy, and that Hamilton, who was born in the West Indies 
and who had no such great family connection as had Jef- 
ferson, and who by every rule of reason should have been a 
democrat, was the head and front of the aristocratic party 
in America. It is absolutely true that history is frequently 
stranger than fiction. 

The Tariff and Trusts. — ^We claim to be the disciples 



EXCERPTS FROM SPEECHES 247 

of Thomas Jefferson, and what do we stand for to-day? 
We are as much against special privilege, and as much in 
favor of equal rights to all as he was. We believe and 
we proclaim our faith in the great body of the people, and 
that the law should give every citizen an equal opportunity 
in the race of life. We won the election of 1910 on these 
principles — stated, perhaps, in a different way, but on the 
principles enunciated by Jefferson nevertheless. And the 
Democratic House over which I have the honor to preside 
has kept the faith, and has redeemed, or is in process of 
redeeming, every promise made in order to achieve that 
victory. 

The high protective tariff system and the trusts are 
bottomed on special privilege against which Jefferson con- 
tended all his life. It is unjust to use the taxing power 
to enrich a few men at the expense of the great body of 
the taxpayers. The Government has the right to take in 
the way of taxation every dollar that it needs for its own 
economical and effective administration. I put in the word 
"effective" because no good citizen, by whatever political 
name called, desires to see the government crippled in 
an}-^ legitimate function. But every dollar wrung from 
the taxpayers beyond the needs of government economi- 
cally and efficiently administered is an outrage on justice 
and on patriotism, even though done under the forms of 
law. The high protective tariff is the mother of trusts. 
The trusts will never be abolished until the tariff" is cut to 
revenue basis, or to as close an approximation thereto as 



248 CHAMP CLARK 

possible. The truth is that the tariff question and the 
trust question are one and the same. 

The RepubKcans promised before the elections of 1908 
that if they were again entrusted with power they would re- 
duce the tariff. Without that promise they could not have 
carried the country. On that promise they did carry the 
country, and immediately proceeded to revise the tariff up. 
For that stupendous piece of bad faith the people trounced 
them in 1910, and will trounce them still more thoroughly 
in 1912. We won that election on six principal promises : 
To submit a constitutional amendment providing for the 
election of United States Senators by popular vote, against 
which no man has ever been able to urge a tenable objec- 
tion. If a citizen is fit to vote for President and Vice- 
President, for Governors and members of the House of 
Representatives and minor officers on down to constable, 
they are equally competent to vote for United States Sen- 
ators. What is a Senator, anyway.'' He is simply a larger 
representative. At least that is what he ought to be, and 
as such he ought to be elected by popular vote. 

Money In Elections. — ^We promised to pass a law 
compelling the publication of campaign expenses before 
the election, instead of after the election. The average 
American citizen, of whatever political faith, is absolutely 
honest. He does not believe in the corrupt use of money 
in elections, and he believes that in the last twenty years 
money has been used corruptly in elections, constantly and 
in rapidly increasing volume as the years go by, and he 



EXCERPTS FROM SPEECHES 249 

proposes to put a stop to it. He does not Intend that this 
Government, which, with all its faults, is the best that the 
sun ever shone upon, shall be destroyed through corrup- 
tion. Therefore the average citizen has made up his mind 
that the expense of election shall be so reduced that poor 
men as well as rich men may aspire to serve their country 
in public places. 

We promised to liberalize the rules of the House, and 
we have done it. It was said that if the rules were liber- 
alized, particularly if the Speaker were taken off of the 
Rules Committee, of which he was chairman, and practi- 
cally of which he was the whole thing, and if the power of 
appointing committees was taken from him, business could 
not be transacted, order could not be maintained, decorum 
could not be preserved and chaos would return. We de- 
prived the Speaker of the chairmanship of the Committee 
on Rules; we took him off of the Rules Committee, and 
we made the committees elective by the House, and yet all 
observers of the situation will testify that order has never 
been more thoroughly maintained in the House; that de- 
corum has never been more constantly preserved ; that busi- 
ness has never been more greatly expedited, and that chaos 
has been conspicuous only by its absence. 

Record of the House. — The present Democratic 
House has passed more constructive legislation than any 
other House since the Government was organized, in the 
same length of time. In fact, we have set the high-water 
mark for constructive statesmanship for all the Houses 



250 CHAMP CLARK 

that shall come after us. Every member of the House feels 
that he has been treated with absolute fairness, and there 
has not been an unseemly scene in the House since it was 
organized. We promised to admit New Mexico and Ari- 
zona as two separate States. It is a shame that they were 
not admitted when Wyoming, Idaho, the Dakotas, Mon- 
tana, and Washington were admitted. 

We promised to economize, and we are proceeding to do 
so as we pass the great appropriation bills through the 
House. Every one of them is being reduced wherever re- 
duction is possible, keeping always in view the good of 
the public service. I know that economy is one of the 
dryest subjects under heaven. It is dryer than a powder 
house in a drouth in the month of August. But when I 
was a boy back in the hill country of Anderson County I 
heard an old rough-and-ready country doctor say that 
the most sensitive nerve in the human anatomy was the 
nerve leading to the pocketbook, and the average citizen 
believes Avith old Ben Franklin that a penny saved is a 
penny made, and while all good citizens are willing to con- 
tribute their just proportion of money to support the 
Government, they are bitterly opposed to spending two 
dollars Avhere one dollar will do the same work effectively. 
AVe began economizing where charity should begin — at 
home — by lopping off over a hundred supernumerary 
officials in the House and turning their salaries, amounting 
to about $200,000, into the Treasury. 

Party's Tariff Record. — We promised to reduce the 



EXCERPTS FROM SPEECHES 251 

tariff. There was notliing equivocal about that, and we 
proceeded to redeem that promise at the extra session of 
Congress. We passed a tariff bill which would have saved 
to the American people about $500,000,000 a year of 
tariff burdens. It should never be forgotten that under 
a high protective tariff system, where one dollar goes into 
the coffers of the Government, about five dollars go into 
the pockets of the tariff barons. Five hundred million 
dollars is about five dollars a head for the American citi- 
zen, $27.50 for the average family. To some folks this 
may seem like a small economy, but as the average head of 
a family, which is the unit of our civilization, consisting of 
five and a half persons, receives only about ,$400 a year, it 
is a cruel outrage to gouge him out of $27.50 of his 
meager income and give it to the tariff barons already rich 
beyond the dreams of avarice. 

President Taft vetoed all our tariff bills, thereby rais- 
ing an Issue which will rage with unabated fury until the 
polls close in November. Under the Constitution he has 
the prerogative of using the veto. So has the King of 
Great Bntain, but no Bntish King has dared use the veto 
in two centuries, and the first British King who does veto 
an Important bill avIII be the last of his line, just as William 
Howard Taft will be the last of the Standpat Presidents. 
He made his record; we made ours. On that record we 
confidently appeal to the people, the court of last resort 
in politics. 

Big Saving In Sugar. — At this regular session we have 



252 CHAMP CLARK 

passed tariff bills, which in the aggregate would save the 
people as much as the tariff bills which we passed at the 
extra session. In the item of sugar alone, one of our bills 
saves the consumers of the land $150,000,000 a year. The 
Payne- Aldrich-Smoot Tariff Bill raises about $53,000,000 
a year on sugar. To recoup this loss of $53,000,000 we 
passed a bill levying an excess tax on incomes over $5,000 
a year, which it is estimated will bring into the Treasury 
about as much revenue as is now derived from sugar, thus 
relieving the people of about $100,000,000 of taxes on 
sugar alone, which will reduce the cost of living that much. 
This excise tax is practically a level income tax. 

If I had carte blanche to write the laws I would estab- 
lish a graduated income tax with liberal exemptions which 
would bring into the Treasury a large amount of money 
and would give us a free hand in the reduction of the 
tariff. This excise tax is defensible on the ground of 
humanity and justice — that it takes the burden of taxa- 
tion off of the people who are least able to pay it and levies 
the taxes on those who are most able to pay them. Presi- 
dent Taft may veto our tariff bills passed at this regular 
session. I have heard that he will. Without being a 
prophet or the son of a prophet, I make bold to predict 
that he will not veto the excise bill, and that if he signs it 
the Supreme Court will not declare it unconstitutional. It 
will thus be seen that we have religiously fulfilled, or are 
in process of fulfilling, every promise that we made in 
order to carry the election. 



EXCERPTS FROM SPEECHES 253 

The impending campaign must be fought out very 
largely on the record made by the Democrats of the House 
in the Sixty-first Congress, which was so splendid as to 
surprise our friends and dumfound our enemies, and also 
on the magnificent record made by the Democrats in both 
House and Senate in the present Congress. I helped to 
make those records. I am proud of them, as is every good 
Democrat betwixt the two seas, and on them we can win 
in the impending struggle. 

Big Issues In November. — Of course, there are many 
other issues, some great, some small, some national in their 
scope, and some confined entirely to the State, which I 
have not time to discuss, but, above all, the overshadowing 
issue will be the tariff question and the cognate question 
of the trusts. The tariff ought to be reduced to a revenue 
basis, and laws against the trusts in both their criminal 
and civil features should be rigorously enforced without 
fear or favor. There is no reason on earth why a big 
criminal should go scot-free and a little criminal be sent 
to jail or the penitentiary. Such an administration of the 
law has a tendency to bring all law into contempt. 

Our prospects of success this year are better than they 
have been at any time in my recollection — ^better even than 
tliey were in April, 1892, when we won our sweeping vic- 
tory, and for the first time since 1859 had possession of 
the House, the Senate, and the Presidency all at once. If 
we lose this fight it will be through overconfidence and by 
reason of a foolish dependence on the factional fight among 



254 CHAMP CLARK 

the Republicans. Against this I warn all my Democratic 
friends. In order to win we must hold all the votes we 
received in 1908 and win many thousands more. The only 
way we can hope to draw independent voters to our side 
is by continuing in the lines upon which the Democratic 
House has been proceeding ever since its organization. 

Appeal to Kentuckians. — My Fellow Kentuckians : 
There is an old saying: "Once a Kentuckian always a 
Kentuckian," and I believe it is true. 

When the partiality of the Democratic Representatives 
in Congress assigned me by their unanimous voice to the 
highest office held by any man of our political faith since 
the 4th of March, 1897, — the second highest office within 
the gift of the mightiest and freest people under the sun — 
I made it the rule of my conduct not to accept an invi- 
tation to speak which would cause me to lose a day from 
the discharge of the duties of the great office which I 
hold. I made an exception in the case of Kentucky, the 
State where I was born and where my mother's people 
have lived since the Caucasians first came into possession 
of this goodly land which Tom Marshall denominated "the 
Garden spot of the World." So I am here — I am glad to 
be here — I hope it is good to be here. It is to me a home- 
coming, arousing tender memories of the long ago. 

The people of this dear old Commonwealth, some of them 
at least, have known me from the cradle, how I toiled and 
struggled as a hired farmhand from a time when little 
more than a child, clerked in a country store, and taught 



EXCERPTS FROM SPEECHES 255 

school before I was fifteen in the old-fashioned log cabin 
with slab seats. 

"Still o'er these scenes my memory wakes 
"And fondly broods with miser care; 

"Time but the impression deeper makes 
"As streams their channels deeper wear." 

Then I went forth to seek my fortune in the imperial 
Commonwealth of Missouri, whose people received me with 
open arms and loving hearts and have showered honors 
upon me without stint. They have advanced me step by 
step till I occupy the Speaker's chair, whose most illus- 
trious occupant was another Kentuckian, Henry Clay. The 
people of Missouri have sent me forth with their indorse- 
ment and their blessing as their candidate for the greatest 
political office known among men. My heart goes out in 
gratitude to the good people of Missouri for this last and 
most conclusive evidence of their esteem and confidence. But 
Missouri, great as she is, and proud of her as I am, cannot 
single-handed and alone nominate a candidate for Presi- 
dent. Where then should the Missourians, many thous- 
ands of whom are Kentuckians or the descendants of Ken- 
tuckians, look for help ? Surely to old Kentucky to whom 
Missourians are bound by the ties of affection and of blood. 

In this crisis of my fate to whom should I, four genera- 
tions of whose ancestors sleep among the Kentucky hills, 
turn for succor in achieving the supreme honor of the re- 
public? Most assuredly to Kentuckians who are flesh of 
my flesh and bone of my bone — to Kentuckians, the proud- 
est and most clannish people in the wide, wide world. Of 



L^- 



256 CHAMP CLARK 

course, I am thankful for the support of Oklahoma, Kan- 
sas, Arkansas, Wisconsin, Illinois, and other States, but 
the support of Kentucky would be to me beyond all price, 
more precious than rubies, sweeter than honey and the 
honeycomb. Since Abraham Lincoln was gathered to his 
fathers, no Kentuckian has had a chance to be President, 
and all her great sons have missed the glittering prize. In 
this exigency of my career I come to Kentucky for aid wit', 
the implicit confidence with which a child would go to i^s 
mother for assistance; for, after all: 

"There is no place like the old place where you and I were born! 
"Where we lifted first our eyelids on the splendor of the morn, 
"From the milk-white breast that warmed us, from the clinging arms 

that bore, 
"Where the dear eyes glistened o'er us that will look on us no more! 
"There is no friend like the old friend, who has shared our morning 

days, 
"No greeting like his welcome; no homage like his praise; 
"Fame is the scentless sunflower with gaudy crown of gold, 
"But friendship is the breathing rose, with sweets in every fold." 



